


Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia

by flirtygaybrit



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Research of a Questionable Nature, Slow Burn, Witcher Physiology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26672929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flirtygaybrit/pseuds/flirtygaybrit
Summary: Told partly through snippets of published research and other informative texts written by the poet Dandelion, and partly through the various experiences of the Witcher Geralt of Rivia as they have occurred primarily in the years 1267 and 1268, this story includes personal reflections on (and indisputable facts about): the various anatomical features and physiological responses of Witchers; snippets of conversation between people who are far too comfortable making assumptions about people and things; the navigation of intimacies both familiar and unfamiliar; and the questioning of both personal and professional motivations, especially as they concern the decades-long friendship of Geralt and Dandelion.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 13
Kudos: 65
Collections: Witcher Big Bang





	Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia

**Author's Note:**

> At last, the time has come to post! I've had such fun writing this silly little fic over the last few months, and even _more_ fun watching my dear partner in crime read through this ridiculous mess of pseudo-academic blabbering-slash-thinly-veiled interest in Witcher orgasms and come up with [THE MOST WONDERFUL ILLUSTRATION](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26690308) to accompany this story ;-; please check out the fantastic arts and marvel over them as I have, I beg you. And a massive thank you as well to my wonderful beta, Gav, for stepping in on short notice and ensuring that I haven't made any unforgivable errors. <3
> 
> As mentioned in the summary, this story mostly spans the majority of the main Witcher novels' timeline (Blood of Elves through Lady of the Lake, so there are some minor spoilers for the events of those five novels. The rest is, as promised, the result of a troubadour attempting to write about anatomy, a Witcher inadvertently disproving popular misconceptions, and a complete lack of communication leading to a tense conversation or two. I hope you enjoy!

I

_Why Geralt of Rivia?_

_This is the question that I have so often found myself pondering, and the question that many have tried, in manners varying from polite curiosity to boorishness, snoopiness and anywhere and everywhere in between, to pry from me._

_Why, they ask, knowingly entwine your fate with Geralt of Rivia?_

_Why make the conscious and foolhardy decision to travel the Continent with the White Wolf, the horrid Butcher of Blaviken, that white-haired mutant known as Gwynbleidd among the hermitical dryads of Brokilon, and known to himself and only a select handful by a name so long and complicated that I dare not ink it upon this page so as to protect the sanctity of the words that define his very soul?_

_Why not find some other Witcher in the world, some young cat-eyed creature of the same sinew, some blood-spattered monster-hunter more prone to sharing the secrets of Witcher code with a chest puffed out like a barrel of rye, or perhaps some decades-old veteran who survived innumerable encounters with creatures not of this world, now missing an eye or half an ear, whose bones creak with the victories of long-forgotten battles and who would, deep in his cups and with a twinkle in his milky eye, impart to me the tragic and heroic stories of his glory days?_

_I have asked myself these questions time and time again, and in my searching have come up with questions of my own to ask in return:_

_Why does the oxpecker sit on the muddy back of the hippopotamus?_

_Why does a plover sit waiting in the cavernous mouth of a terrifying crocodilian?_

_Why does the remora fasten itself to the underbelly of a shark?_

_Surely there are many more examples of symbiosis in nature, and it is plain to see that there is a mutual consent to these relationships. By uniting a pair of intelligent creatures who in many ways complement one another, each may gain numerous benefits: a sure meal; shelter; protection from other threats; and more._

_Thus is my relationship with Geralt of Rivia (hereafter referred to in this text as G.). For he has been of great use to me in my worldly travels, and I, on more than several occasions, have aided him in times of great need._

_Take, for example, the first instance in which I discovered the toxic after-effects of Witchers’ potions…_

— Dandelion, foreword to _Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia_

“Sweet heaven, hell, and all the gods,” Dandelion exclaimed. His spine had gone so rigid at the sight of Geralt that it seemed he would topple backward from the log that he had settled upon, but the Witcher’s appearance could not have frightened him too badly, or even at all; he placed his lute on the soft moss and sprang to his feet as Geralt approached the fire, and it became obvious that the face he had pulled was not directed at the fathomless black of Geralt’s eyes, but at the disembodied head that he carried by a mass of tangled black hair, with its long tongue lolling from its cruel mouth and a hooked nose, broken and crusted with blood. “Is that it? The, er, black annis? Ugly thing.”

“This is one,” Geralt said. He dropped the head unceremoniously on the ground. He often had more respect for the creatures he had been commissioned to hunt, but this one had proven particularly unrespectable in many ways—in decorum, primarily, but also in battle. And principle. Most things that gorged themselves on human flesh were, to Geralt, particularly undeserving of having their heads placed lovingly on a stone-and-moss plinth in the woods. “In my experience, where there’s one flesheater, there’s usually more. Snuff the fire, if you don’t mind. We need to get to Carsten quickly.”

Dandelion hesitated for a moment, then began to scuff at the ground with his boot, sending up a spray of dry earth with a grimace. “Right, yes, let’s just take our new friend with us and march merrily into the night. Great idea. It’s not like we’re walking bags of tasty flesh, you know, just waiting to be devoured by corpse-eaters and hags and… other things… yes, I’m feeling quite good about my chances of survival, Geralt. Not sure about you.”

“If you’d prefer, you’re welcome to wait out the night by the fire with our new friend. I’m sure a devourer wouldn’t mind the taste of smoked meat. But I need to go.”

It was easy to ignore Dandelion’s overdramatic noises of disgust and distaste, as Geralt had already turned away to rummage through one of the saddlebags slung over Roach’s back and was focused on feeling for a small stoppered bottle, a sister to the one he had drunk shortly before setting off in search of the black annis who now stared vacantly at the smothering fire; without thinking he pressed a hand to the mare’s side, which had been warmed somewhat by the fire, and murmured reassuringly.

Behind him, Dandelion gave the dripping head a wide berth and had begun to pack away his lute with a huff.

“Why, exactly, are we in such a hurry? The monster’s been slain, hasn’t it? You’re not wounded, are you?”

“It has, and no. But in the scuffle I managed to lose quite an important mixture that I won’t be able to replace or brew without access to an herbalist, and I may be as good as dead without it.”

“ _May_ be?”

“I may,” Geralt said, “and I may not.”

“Well, if we have to travel quickly, at least tell me you’ll be able to guide us in the dark. I can only see so far with the help of that radiant and luminous torch known as the moon—”

“I can. But not for long.”

“Oh,” said Dandelion, deflating somewhat. “Well, good thing. I would be loathe to travel by torchlight and avoid making that terribly common assumption that the first innocent midnight traveler we come across is a devourer following the scent of blood on the air and discover my mistake only once my dagger had found its way into his belly.” He pulled himself into his saddle, swore, and attempted to adjust something inconspicuously on either his britches or his belt.

“That’s if he gets close enough for you to stab him. But I’ll watch the road, if only to keep you from moaning all the way to Carsten. I’ll keep an eye on the moon, too.”

“Why the moon?”

“If a cloud passes over it and dims his sight, he just might hear all your nervous stamping and whining and make the terribly common assumption that you’re a wild horse.”

“Hmph. He’ll discover his mistake quickly enough,” Dandelion said, then hissed and swore again; Geralt had already returned to the devourer’s head and was attempting to fasten it to Roach’s saddle by the hair, but without turning around—and without consciously trying to pick up on the sharp tang of metal that joined the smoke in the air around them—the Witcher knew that there was a good chance Dandelion had just stabbed himself by accident instead. And not for the first time.

“Sure. A devourer won’t be expecting a horse to wield a knife. A night rider just might saddle you anyway.”

Dandelion made a face as Geralt tugged on the head to test the strength of his knots. “I don’t plan to be poked anytime soon. Indeed, I’ll be the one making a veritable pincushion of anyone who tries to get the jump on me.”

“Remind me not to enter your bedchambers after dark, lest I leave with more holes than I entered with,” Geralt said dryly. He pulled himself into the saddle and glanced around, turning Roach to examine the remnants of their campsite and the forest beyond. There was no indication that any stray devourers, black annises, or other various necrophages had followed him from the site where he had decapitated the hag whose head now bumped gently against Roach’s flank; with any luck, if any such creature had been present and evaded Geralt’s detection, they had set upon the half-eaten carcass of the buck that Geralt had discovered in the distant field and wouldn’t give chase for some time. As it was, he had remained at the site just to be sure, silent and waiting, and had heard no suspicious rustling, inhuman growling, or quiet footfalls in the dirt. The effects of his elixirs would wear off shortly before sunrise, unless he died first... so if anything attacked, he hoped it would be considerate enough to do so before dawn.

They walked side-by-side until the sky began to lighten and the morning birds began to twitter about the sun. Geralt’s pupils had begun to slowly constrict with the arrival of the dusky light, and he no longer felt the same humming in his muscles that made him feel as if he were a catgut string someone had recently plucked. He knew that his reflexes had dulled, and he was exhausted besides; yawning and shifting uncomfortably from hours spent in the saddle, Dandelion had even taken to beating a tired tune against his thigh, both to anchor Geralt to consciousness and, he suspected, to keep himself from slipping from his stirrups and face-planting into the dirt.

“Oh, _quell source d’inspiration_ ,” the poet sighed in the direction of the sun, which had yet to break through the barrier of the treeline along which they had traveled. The sky resembled a cotton cloth blotted with paint; a purplish-pink had begun to spread and would soon lighten to blue, and it had cast an odd colour over Dandelion’s doublet. “There’s nothing quite like a sunrise, although I would prefer to have had a good night’s rest before seeing it. Still, better this than food for some hideous, stinking hag. Ah. As fond of the sun and its blessed warmth as I am, Geralt, I fear I won’t be able to carry on for much longer at this pace. Do you think we could hurry it up a pinch?”

Geralt blinked and brought the world back onto focus. The light was suddenly too bright; his pupils were beginning to slow their reaction, and the rest of him felt similarly sluggish.

“We’ll be another two hours before we reach the crossroad,” he mumbled. A sudden sense of vertigo swept over him, but he could not tell whether he had started to sway sideways out of exhaustion and caught himself, or if he had simply experienced a brief motion sickness exacerbated by the potions. He thought for a long moment, squeezing Roach’s reins tighter to ground himself. His organs felt as if they had suddenly been displaced by a particularly long and perilous fall. It was a queasiness he knew well, like seasickness after several days without sleep, and hunger besides. “I’ll need to stop before then.”

“Dandelion.”

“Yes?”

Geralt’s tongue felt thick. “Don’t be alarmed… the potions… I might have overdone it… I can’t stay awake any longer.”

“Oh, shit and fucking balls,” Dandelion said, but Geralt did not respond; indeed, he had not even heard the poet speak, for in the time between one of Roach’s hoof-falls and the next, he had quite simply fallen asleep.

The next time Geralt opened his eyes, it was to a blinding light and the dark outline of a man in a feathered cap. He smelled burnt and salted meat, hot kasha, eggs, mead; the muted sounds of a bustling crowd and the distant smell of manure wafting from beyond the window told him that, in the mere seconds that seemed to have passed in his memory, he had been relocated to an inn at breakfast time.

“Ah, there he is. Careful, now, don’t try to get up, Geralt, and don’t be worried, I’ve left your armour nearby. You gave me a bit of a scare, you know? Tell me I don’t need to send for a doctor.”

“I’ll be fine.” Geralt squinted against the light pouring in from the window, and Dandelion, recognizing his discomfort, was mercifully quick to hop up, shutter the windows, and resume his position at the bedside. “I just need to sleep and eat. Are we back in Carsten?”

“Indeed. I know you’re probably wondering how it is we came to arrive here safely and soundly, what with you playing the part of a sack of bricks for the last few hours. If I told you that I had hoisted you onto my horse, affixed you with some rope to my back so as to keep you upright, continued our journey until I found this lovely inn in which to let you recover, and ended the tale by suggesting that I’ve kept vigil over your corpse-like form for the past few hours to ensure that you were desperately in need only of rest and not of a doctor, and all of this despite being more exhausted myself than a virgin on her wedding night, would you believe me?”

Geralt closed his eyes.”It wouldn’t matter if you did these things, Dandelion, or if you had simply flagged down a passing cart in which a sack of bricks would not be out of place. I’m quite grateful to you for not leaving me in the dirt all the same.” He paused for a long time; when he spoke next, Dandelion inhaled, as though he’d been waiting on Geralt to continue to prove his vitality. “And the black annis?”

“Oh, she’s not gone far, don’t worry. Terrible company, but present all the same.”

“You didn’t think to take her to the alderman for the reward?”

“It crossed my mind, I’ll admit, but then I thought to myself: what if the alderman were to mistake you for a corpse and myself for a scavenging opportunist—not that my attire would suggest so, but you never know what assumptions one will make—and refuse to provide payment, seeing as the one who took the contract was dead? So she’s in here with us, for now. A bit unsettling, sure, but I guess she’s fine so long as you don’t make eye contact.”

“Smart thinking,” Geralt murmured, smiling to himself at the image of Dandelion haggling with the local alderman over a limp Witcher and a night witch’s head. “Thank you.”

The troubadour hummed softly in acknowledgement, and after a few seconds the bed dipped under the weight of a second occupant, a familiar bedmate.

“So… you’re _not_ actually dying, just to clarify? I seem to remember you telling me not to be alarmed, but you did give me quite a fright, vacating your saddle like that.”

“Not dying,” Geralt confirmed. “No more than you are.”

The poet made a noise of relief. “Thank the heavens for that. I did try to resuscitate you, you know. ‘Course, it had little effect since you were breathing just fine, but… well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re okay, and that I was able to act quickly and decisively. In fact, I do believe I saved your life.”

“Don’t let your head swell. I would have been fine. Sometimes the potions we use… the side effects can be unpleasant. There are potions to counteract the toxins, but if you have none on hand…”

“Or if you’re running like someone’s lit a fire under your arse and manage to drop it…”

“Or that.”

Dandelion chuckled. He shifted again, and the wooden bedframe creaked, and a bit of paper rustled somewhere near Geralt’s ear. “I’ll say. Curious as I am as to why you would imbibe those in the first place, I believe I understand enough about your strange species to know that they are useful in your line of work. I’m simply glad to know that you’re safe. But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll write down the name of that particular elixir, in case you exhibit similar symptoms in the future and need someone to keep a bit extra. What did you call it, again?”

Geralt told him the name. And told him the colour, texture, and precise effects and side-effects of that particular potion.

“Amazing,” Dandelion murmured. “Simply amazing.”

The scratch of his pencil continued for some time, and at last the poet sighed and made some noises indicative of the completion of his notes and settled back into place on the bed.

“Well, that’s that. And now that the excitement’s passed, you should go back to sleep, Geralt. You need to recover. If you need food or drink or a wet cloth or anything else, say the word. I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”

The inn was blissfully quiet beyond the walls of the room; if Geralt had truly wished to discern their approximate location inside the building, he would have noted the scent of grease frying and bread baking inside the kitchen (across the hall), the occasional scrape of wooden chair legs on wooden floor planks from the patrons (down the hall and around the corner), and the quality and angle of the light filtering in through the window (along an eastern wall). He was certain that the only interruption would come from Dandelion himself, but was grateful enough for the room not to argue. “You’re not sleeping in your own room?”

“I should think not. Someone’s got to make sure our dear friend Annie doesn’t attempt to revive and walk away with our meal ticket… and besides,” the poet added gently, “I think I could use a nap myself. It’s been an exhausting day…”

He carried on for a few minutes, describing the dreamlike quality of the sunrise and the comfort that the thatched roofs of the town had provided as they rose on the horizon. He gave no indication of noticing that Geralt, lulled by Dandelion’s idle chatter and the rocking motion of the bed during his unconscious ritual of settling into place like a cat turning in circles, had already taken the poet’s advice and slipped peacefully into slumber.

The room went quiet and was filled with the sounds of sleep; as morning passed into noon and the afternoon shadows began to creep about the room, the glazed and sightless eyes of the black annis watched them silently from a chair in the corner of the room, slowly staining the wood beneath it to black.

II

_  
IV. On Matters of Physiological Arousal_

_It would suffice to say that all Witchers respond similarly to matters concerning that physiological response known as arousal; in humans, a stimulus intended to arouse the nervous system prompts such predictable effects as a dilation of the pupils, a quickening of the respiratory rate, a change in metabolism and digestion, and the mobilization of blood toward the heart and the voluntary muscles of the body. It is enough to ask any doctor, herbalist, alchemist, mage, torturer, or expert in the carnal arts to confirm this information to be true, as all are capable of stimulating such responses in various ways. In Witchers, however, so little has been understood of the way that their physiology works that it might seem impossible to distinguish between the characteristics exhibited during physiological arousal and the characteristics exhibited at rest._

_For example: the pupil dilation which is not ordinarily controlled consciously by a human man is, in a Witcher, under voluntary control. The constricting or dilating of pupils in a Witcher, though commonly misunderstood by the uneducated to be utilized as a tactic of intimidation, a sign of intoxication, or a tool for hypnosis, is designed to allow a Witcher to control the amount of light entering the slitted pupil, and thus to provide enhanced vision in reduced light while preventing utter blindness during the day._

_(...) however, although the immediate effects of the magical potions and elixirs brewed and consumed by Witchers—_ as alluded to in Monstrum Volume II, or A More Faithful Depiction of Witchers, _and as detailed in section XII—should be considered typical for the Witcher race, they should be considered atypical for most other creatures, who upon imbibing any amount of elixir may suffer immediate and irreversible damage to the organs and, in all recorded cases and in anecdotes shared by G., die._

— Dandelion, _Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia_

_It is possible for a Witcher to die. For a Witcher is augmented, mutated, but cannot be made immortal. It is possible that a Witcher may die of old age, I suspect, as any man might; his hair whitens and grows thin, his libido wanes, his bones grow brittle, and perhaps, if fate has blessed him to do so, he dies quietly and peacefully._

_But no Witcher dies of old age._

— Dandelion, _Monstrum Volume II, or A More Faithful Depiction of Witchers_

“I heard once that a Witcher can move so swiftly and silently in the shadows that it can be as if he were a bat taking wing. Tell me, do you know the difference?”

Geralt, moving neither swiftly nor silently nor even within any particularly deep and dark shadows, sat on the wooden step next to Dandelion. “I don’t think I’ve heard this one. Let me guess. The difference between a Witcher and a bat… well, they both consume the blood of the innocent, so that can’t be it.”

“Nope. Try again.”

“They… take care of local pests and don’t get paid for it.”

“An excellent comparison,” said Dandelion, smiling warmly at Geralt, who had his face upturned and was watching the clouds slowly rolling across the sky. “I think you’ve almost made it, so I will ask once more: what is the difference between a bat and a Witcher?”

A breeze blew past the farmhouse, sending ripples along the grass and through the distant rows of crops. It was unusually chilly, or else seemed so to Geralt; Dandelion must have felt it too, for he shivered suddenly and clutched at his doublet as if he wished to disappear inside it.

He hadn’t seen the apparitions. Or if he had, he hadn’t mentioned it. Between Ciri’s arrival and Yennefer’s, it had been impossible for Geralt to find enough time to spare a thought for what the omen may have meant. Or what any of it had meant. He was thankful, suddenly, that Dandelion was still awake.

“I can’t say,” Geralt admitted after a moment’s silence. “What is it? Witchers kill vampires and bats become them? One sucks blood, the other…?”

“Ah, you’re getting there. It’s in the same spirit, at least. One drains the blood, the other drains the purse.”

Geralt smiled. Such jokes often left a sour taste in his mouth, and he had long ago given up on attempting to humour anyone by correcting rumours and ruining jokes with fact, but he was in too good a mood to let it bring him down. “That’s not the worst I’ve heard.”

“I’m omitting details and expletives for your sake,” Dandelion said, then nudged his shoulder against Geralt’s. “Oh, I have so missed your good moods. Don’t tell your temper, mind. He might become jealous. Oh, come on. You know that I’m happy for you. And happy to see Ciri myself, of course. Why, I’m even happy to see Yennefer, though perhaps not as happy as you.”

The inflection of his voice suggested he expected Geralt to be happy and then some, which Geralt was glad for. Jealousy was tedious and boring at the best of times, and Dandelion’s feelings toward Yennefer had always been complicated at best, if loudly and shamelessly vocalized.

Still, it felt good to have Dandelion by his side. His companion had always been good to him on the road, and there were times when he sincerely appreciated having Dandelion nearby. Now, with the prospect of arriving at Aretuza with Yennefer and Ciri at long last, it felt only appropriate to have Dandelion take part in the celebrations.

“Well, it might surprise you to know that I am happy to see even you on occasion. Though there are times when you infuriate me… I appreciate you, Dandelion.”

Dandelion seemed taken aback. He made a small, thoughtful noise, then sat up straighter.

“Well, I can’t say that surprises me entirely, but I do confess to enjoying the sound of it. I appreciate you too, you old fart. It’s strange, you know, how infrequently we say such things to the people we care about the most. Why, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished to go back and tell…”

He continued to speak for some time, filling the silence with idle chatter. Much of it was unimportant, and most of it was obviously meant to put Geralt at ease. And himself, as well. Not a single person on the farm felt truly comfortable on this night, especially Geralt. He would in fact recall this conversation many months later, and would remember the sense of calm that accompanied it. In the moment, it did not strike him as being so important, and so he simply listened to Dandelion speak, and watched the roiling clouds hang heavy and low in the sky, an omen of the trouble that was yet to come.

III

__  
On Matters of Sexual Arousal

_It would be remiss to exclude a faithful description of a Witcher’s response to sexual arousal, as this subject in particular is understudied and firsthand accounts are difficult to come by. One interview I conducted with an anonymous individual who had engaged in carnal relations with a Witcher reported inhuman stamina, notably improved dimensions of sexual organs, a decreased refractory period post-ejaculation, and a fixation on taste, particularly pertaining to the act of providing oral pleasure._

_As reported by G., sexual fulfillment can aid in heightening the nervous system, and thus clarifies and improves a Witcher’s reflex response time, along with other major senses which include hearing, smell, and sight. Under casual observation, in an unaroused state, G. exhibits few of these supposed characteristics. With some time and no small amount of labour-intensive research, I was able to confirm that: Witcher mutations contribute, to some degree, to an increase in sexual stamina; sexual arousal and fulfillment in Witchers does indeed lead to the heightening of the aforementioned senses for a period of time shortly following orgasm; and a measurable decrease in time between orgasms, which becomes less notable following orgasms beyond the second and less notable still beyond the third._

_As for the question of dimensions of sexual organs and potential sensory fixations, I have found no proof that these are typical of Witchers’ sexual responses._

_I thus hypothesize that, as among human men, such characteristics vary between individuals, and admit that further research is required to confirm the truth._

— Dandelion, _Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia_

A birch log popped in the crackling campfire and sent a burst of sparks into a swirling frenzy against the dark.

Lately, it felt as though all Geralt had done was rest, and it bothered him immensely. Fire after fire, one heavy and humid August campsite after the next, he and his accomplices, Dandelion and Milva, were making their way southward from Brokilon. They were moving slowly, too slowly for Geralt’s taste, but with Scoia’tael commandos all around, Nilfgaardian forces on the high roads, and a recent rash of shit weather to boot, this was the best they could do.

And it didn’t help that Geralt still favoured one leg and arm. The dryads had done their best, had saved his life and indebted him to them eternally, but although he’d rested for months and could wait no longer, his knee and elbow had unfortunately not received the message and insisted on hurting at nearly all hours of the day. Sometimes he could ignore it, and sometimes he couldn’t.

Tonight he couldn’t.

Milva had gone off into the forest with her bow to scavenge for something to eat, and left Dandelion to guard the campsite while Geralt slung a canvas tarp over the lowermost branch of a pockmarked tree, gritting his teeth so hard that the muscles of his jaw stood out. Although the downpour had temporarily relented and left the air feeling like a soggy woolen blanket atop their shoulders, there was no telling when the clouds would let loose again, and so Dandelion aided him hastily once he realized what Geralt was trying to do; with a makeshift shelter erected, Geralt sank to the base of the tree and discovered that it was impossible to find a suitable position on the loamy soil that did not leave him soaked through the trousers.

Dandelion, who had shed his elven doublet and whose jerkin was dappled dark in the shoulders from the rain they had shaken from the upper boughs of the tree, stood with his back to the fire and with his hands on his hips watched Geralt massaging the muscle around his knee with all the effectiveness of a striking viper.

“Would you at least accept a blanket to sit on?”

“If it’s dry.”

Dandelion jerked his thumb backward, indicating the blanket that he had hung over another bough nearest the fire while Geralt was harrumphing about. “It’ll be dry soon enough, long as we keep the fire going steadily.” He thought for a moment, wetting his lips as he appraised the situation. “If you’ll be so kind as to sit on this and give me your trousers, we might be able to dry them before the rain starts again.”

“They won’t dry that quickly.”

“Well, they won’t get any more dry with your miserable, moaning arse in them. At least you won’t develop a fungus, or have anyone question the state of your bowels if we happen across trouble.”

Of all the things Geralt was in the mood for, he would have placed Dandelion’s persistent arseholishness firmly at the bottom. He ignored him for a moment, shifting uncomfortably against the ground, which had thoroughly soaked him through at the arse, then eyed the blanket that had grown lively with the dancing light from the fire.

“Do you have another one?”

“No, just the one. But I’m offering it to you, because at least you can sit on something dry while we cut up these potatoes and wait for Milva to return with something suitable to put in a stew. Or you can sit there and whittle your sticks in the mud, if you’d like, but I’ll leave the blanket there for you.”

“What about you?”

“I didn’t decide to sit in the mud,” Dandelion said with a small, teasing smile.

Geralt exhaled loudly through his nose, hoping to express the full extent of his exasperation and reluctance without having to say as much, and slowly climbed to his feet. It hurt his knee to brace his foot against the ground, and it hurt his elbow to brace his arm against his knee.

“Underpants too.”

“No.”

“Suit yourself,” Dandelion said, and stepped away from the fire to wipe some of the mud from Geralt’s trousers on the wet grass.

The rain resumed partway through their peeling. Geralt shifted aside on the blanket to make space for Dandelion, who huddled against his side beneath the makeshift shelter and did his best to ignore the rain drumming on the tarp over their heads. It had been close to an hour since Milva had first set off, but Geralt was not concerned about the possibility of her running into trouble; she was sharp, agile, and had a decent rapport among many of the elves and half-elves who called this region home, even the Scoia’tael. If anything, he imagined that she was grumbling underneath the hood of her cloak among some drowning ferns, silently or perhaps loudly cursing the small game that had hunkered down to weather the storm. 

The thought made him smile to himself. He could have hunted if he’d wanted, but the rain made his knee ache terribly, and he did not have the patience to lie still in the underbrush like a slow-growing moss and wait for something plump to wander by. And anyway, someone had to keep an eye on the poet.

“And what’s that for, eh? Mister Cantankerous.”

“None of your business,” Geralt replied, stretching out his foot so that it nearly reached the curtain of rain formed by the edge of the tarp. “But if it was your business, and if I felt at all like sharing my thoughts at your request, I would say that I’m smiling because I had the foresight not to give you my underpants, which are finally starting to dry.”

The same couldn’t be said for his trousers, which along with Dandelion’s doublet now hung limply near the dying fire.

“Ah,” Dandelion said lightly. “Well, you can thank your arse for me, at least.”

“You mean my arse can thank you.”

“Yeah, of course.”

He chuckled to himself and went quiet while Geralt cut a piece of turnip into rough cubes, and waited until Geralt sat back against the tree and readjusted his leg again before clearing his throat.

“How does it feel?”

“No worse than arthritis, I imagine. Or an unwanted fungus.”

That was a lie, and Dandelion would know it. He’d seen the condition Geralt had been in after several months of recovery, but even though his bones had been set and mended, his bruising had almost entirely faded, and the symptoms of his concussion had mostly subsided, he still felt the echoes of the blows Vilgefortz had dealt. It almost made him feel for what he’d done to Dijkstra on Thanedd, only he knew that he could not possibly feel bad about having broken the Redanian spy’s ankles, and he knew that Vilgefortz would perhaps only feel bad for having let Geralt live.

The poet glanced sideways at him, gazing with something that was partly sympathetic, and partly unrecognizable. “Did they give you anything for the pain? Anything you could carry with you.”

“They tried. I’d be better off sipping potions all the way to Nilfgaard and suffering the hangover.”

Now Dandelion’s expression was purely sympathetic. “I thought the side-effects were one of the worst things a Witcher could suffer.”

“Ha. If only that were the case.” Geralt readjusted his leg again, drawing his knee up to his chest before stretching it out. He had lost some crucial muscle mass on that side, which could be regained with time and some constitution. The most obvious signs that he had been injured at all were the scars left by the plants the dryads had used. “On the contrary, the after-effects of those elixirs would be more likely to make me forget I’d ever broken anything at all.”

Dandelion blew a gusty breath in lieu of an exclamation of surprise and apology. Geralt shifted again and picked up another piece of turnip. After a long silence, Dandelion rested his hand atop Geralt’s thigh and gave the muscle a gentle squeeze.

Geralt frowned.

“Is that where it was broken?”

The scars covered almost the entire length of Geralt’s thigh. There were no other visible signs of a break having happened. He was lucky that his femur hadn’t shredded the muscle of his leg from the inside out and crippled him permanently. “Higher up.”

“Just tell me if you feel any pain,” the poet said quietly. He kneaded gently and leaned against Geralt’s side. Geralt could not trace the line of his gaze. Dandelion might have been gazing at the back of his hand, or the scars on his leg, or the turnip and knife in his hand. “I don’t know if I can help the way the dryads did, but I may have learned a thing or two while I studied at Oxenfurt.”

“Really? From the professors and doctors?”

“Eh, from the students, but they learned it from the professors. I could send for one of them, if you’d prefer a professional technique and a more practiced hand. Sit down, Geralt, please. If I’m hurting you, tell me.”

He stopped for a moment, flattening his palm out just above Geralt’s bare knee as though trying to gentle a horse. Geralt became suddenly aware of how tight his grip on his knife had become. The turnip he was cubing was slippery against his palm, and he had to force himself to relax, having tensed in anticipation of the sensitivity that he knew would accompany any touch to the area. Indeed, he was sensitive to the warmth of Dandelion’s hand, but it was not as sore or painful as expected.

He sank slowly back against the tree trunk, forced himself into stillness, and closed his eyes.

“That’s better,” Dandelion said softly, not moving his hand. “Count to ten, or list the reigning monarchs of the Continent, or calm your mind by listening to the rain. Meditate if you have to. But tell me if it hurts.”

Geralt focused on the sound of the rain. He counted to ten in all the languages he knew. He mentally listed the names of kings and queens and mages and monsters. He focused on the smell of the potato and turnip in the small iron stewpot, the thick, heavy smoke of the defeated campfire, the scent of wet grass and mud. He thought of Milva cursing out every squirrel, hare, and deer in the kingdom, and found, once he allowed himself to acknowledge the sensation in his leg, that there was no pain. There was only Dandelion’s hand, as practiced as hands came, performing a borrowed technique, massaging the length of Geralt’s leg, strumming lean muscle like lute strings with his thumb.

The rain beat steadily around them, pattering against the summer leaves and rustling the surrounding underbrush. A drenched birch log in the fire popped stubbornly, a death rattle, and in the quiet that followed, Dandelion’s hand inched cautiously higher and found dry fabric.

Geralt leaned against the poet’s side and groaned softly. For the speed and caution with which Dandelion moved, he hadn’t expected such a certain grip… or such a quick response from himself. 

Dandelion paused, humming a quiet question above the patter of the rain. Geralt shook his head. There was no pain underneath Dandelion’s hand, no tenderness in the flesh that he gripped and kneaded with his fingers and palm. True, it ached fiercely, but it was not the sort of ache that the rest of Geralt had become accustomed to. It was the ache of oversensitivity; frankly, it had been an indeterminable amount of time since anyone had touched Geralt through a barrier of fabric, and more frankly, it had been an indeterminable amount of time since the Witcher had found himself grinding his teeth from pleasure.

He turned his head and gasped against the damp roots of Dandelion’s hair. His face felt so warm that he felt as if the rain would sizzle and evaporate if the canvas were to spring a leak. Dandelion, without questioning, found the edge of the fabric and then moved beneath it, sliding fingers rough with lute-string calluses against his skin.

Geralt shuddered. His breath caught in his throat, and finally emerged in a low, croaking moan.

“Well,” Dandelion said after a respectful bout of silence which was disturbed only by the steady patter of rain, “I’ve received worse compliments on my technique, I must confess. How does it feel?”

His thumb shifted slightly, brushing over the sensitive skin of Geralt’s cock the way he often ran his thumb over the neck of his lute. Geralt knew the gesture, but was in no state to acknowledge that he recognized it; it was practiced, fond, often unconscious, and not one he had ever expected to feel on the inside of his underwear. It was also, in a way that Geralt could not perceive and that even Dandelion himself did not yet recognize, meant to soothe and reassure—yet whom the reassurance was meant for was entirely unclear.

“Good,” Geralt said, then swallowed. “Warm.”

_I thought your hands would be softer,_ he thought.

Dandelion glanced at him, making amused contact from the corner of his eye, then carefully removed his hand from where he had been cradling Geralt’s cock. “Warm, hm… strange thing for a knee to feel, but I suppose warm is better than sore,” he said, then leaned forward and held his hand out from underneath the canvas, where the rain quickly and dutifully rinsed all evidence of his deed. “Anyway, once you’re decent and lucid again, do feel free to help me with this stew. If Milva doesn’t manage to find something edible in this bloody wetland, at least we’ll be able to say we’ve accomplished something useful here on our own. Creative analgesics aside.”

He wiped his hand on the blanket that covered the muddy ground, plucked the knife and the turnip slice from where Geralt had abandoned them, and began whistling a merry tune to himself; Geralt, who at present found himself incapable of perceiving anything beyond the thick woodsmoke that the fire was still pitifully coughing up, the rain still beating steadily all around, and the dampness in his underwear that had very little to do with the persistent precipitation, found himself unusually interested in the back of Dandelion’s hands.

He did not pick up on the distinctive sound of an arrow striking flesh among the brush less than a furlong and a half to the north, nor did he hear the doe cry out when pierced. Had he listened, he would have heard the deer simply slump to the forest floor where it stood, succumbing silently and painlessly to darkness, dead before the archer in the woods even took her next breath.

IV

_Addendum: on the subject of Witchers’ sexual organs, I fortunately was, after some patience and persuasion, able to confirm additional details of the reports which I had received. ~~Notably improved dimensions indeed.~~ I must also note that, to my knowledge, there is no inherent danger in causing a Witcher to ejaculate, as previously reported in the first published _Monstrum text. One would no more be threatened by a Witcher’s orgasm and ~~seed~~ ~~semen~~ ~~ejaculate~~ semen than one would be threatened by a moldy sandwich. That is not to say that it is safe or not safe to consume—only that bloodlust and murder is an unlikely result of having done so.

— Dandelion, _Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia_

_It is a wondrous and baffling thing, the mandrake plant; the suggestively-shaped root itself, while disturbing to look at, is quite rarely found in the wild, though this particular plant is known to be cultivated in certain duchies of Nilfgaard such as Vicovaro. It may on occasion be discovered in the wild, but should one come across this odd little root in the wild, take solace in the knowledge that much of the mystery surrounding the mandrake root is myth and nothing more. In fact, it can even be utilized in common mixtures; I once knew a man capable of distilling it into a rather potent moonshine, and found that consuming it caused no unusual side-effects. Only the loosening of the tongue that is characteristic of consuming most types of alcohol. As is also a typical side-effect of consuming alcohol, some may be more susceptible to letting secrets slip than others._

— Dandelion, _Half a Century of Poetry_

The world had experienced a number of dramatic shifts that had irreversibly altered the course of history for all who dwelled on it. One such example included the Conjunction of the Spheres, which had introduced Chaos and a number of strange races and creatures into the world. One example, more or less lesser-known among the general populace and entirely unknown by the majority of the magical creatures who now called the planet their home, involved the slow and inevitable shift in the world’s axis, which had been tilting steadily and, in conjunction with a variety of uncontrollable factors, would create a cascade of events that would eventually lead to what was known as the End of the World.

One was a far smaller and far less cataclysmic event, and while it appeared that this particular shift only involved one very insignificant person, it still had altered this single person’s entire thought process, and it could not be said that this was any less important than environmental changes or the colliding of worlds.

The person was Geralt, of course. The event was Dandelion.

He had been concerned about the implications of the things that Dandelion had done—or that he himself had allowed Dandelion to do—to him beneath the canopy of trees along the bank of the Ribbon, but had not found himself able to decide precisely what he’d thought about it, and so had simply decided to carry on as if nothing had occurred. Dandelion had done the same.

And then he’d done it again. Two days later. Forced to stick to the forest and away from the main roads, they had hunkered down for the night and cleared only enough space for a small fire to cook on, and had spent some time listening to the distant sounds of war that carried through the trees and made the leaves shudder with disgust. Geralt had been the last to fall asleep; Milva had settled with her back to the campfire, which had burned to embers and now smoked gently nearby, and Dandelion had placed his hat over one ear, though Geralt had his doubts about its ability to protect one’s senses from war-sounds, or a well-placed arrow. The night sky, free of cloud cover but illuminated on nearly all sides with the glow of a far greater fire and thick with the scent of a different sort of smoke, was still mostly obscured by the leaves, which simply meant that Geralt had to try counting leaves instead of stars. It hadn’t worked, and he had thought nothing of it when Dandelion, seemingly roused from his slumber, shook off his hat and turned to him with a sleepy, curious glance. He had shifted closer, wordlessly seeking shelter underneath Geralt’s own blanket for warmth… and had proceeded to discover the space underneath Geralt’s underpants for what Geralt assumed to be different reasons.

He’d been almost unbearably close, huddled underneath both blankets on the soggy ground, but the August nights had slowly begun to take on an uncharacteristically early chill, and truthfully, Geralt hadn’t minded the body heat he generated. He also hadn’t minded the orgasm. He’d simply wrapped an arm around Dandelion’s middle, and had lain awake for nearly an hour after the poet’s breathing had slowed and taken on the steady, peaceful cadence of sleep.

Now, days later, Geralt was pleased to have found proper shelter: the tiny summer cottage that housed both the barber-surgeon Emiel Regis and his charming backwoods distillery provided a cramped yet welcome respite, and the mandrake moonshine had done a decent job of making Geralt forget the pain in his knee and elbow. It had also, apparently, done a decent job of obliterating the good sense of almost all who had imbibed it.

It was for that reason that Geralt found himself out of doors now, listening to Zoltan and Field Marshal Windbag attempting to screech obscenities over one another. Dandelion, having followed Geralt outdoors in what he likely thought had been a stealthy manner, stood swaying in the grass nearby, but was betrayed by the scent of the moonshine and the strange mix of cinnamon and wormwood that now clung to each of them who had shared in the merriment inside Regis’s tiny shack.

“You’re not trying to hide from me out here, I hope.”

“I have no reason to hide from you, out here or in there or otherwise,” Geralt said. He turned and watched Dandelion in the dark. The poet’s hat sat stubbornly askew, and there was a flush in his cheeks and a glassiness to his eyes that was not typical for him even in a drunken state. Geralt was quite accustomed to seeing Dandelion drunk; to say that he was in the bag now would be an understatement, and yet he wore an oddly focused expression. It was fixated directly on the front of Geralt’s trousers.

“In fact,” Geralt continued slowly, “it should be me who accuses you of trying to hide from me.” 

Dandelion snorted a puff of steam into the cold air. “That’s funny,” he muttered. It seemed laborious for him to drag his gaze from Geralt’s groin to his face. “Well, let’s shake on it, then, as men do. No one is trying to hide from anyone, and no one must be discovered.”

“Dandelion,” Geralt said softly. 

Dandelion, seemingly intent on shaking on it nonetheless, took a lurching step forward, and chuckled when Geralt caught him by the arm and steadied him on his feet. “Thank you, my dear, I’m afraid the grasses in this area have taken to conspiring against me with the lonely mandrakes, and my feet have sold me out as well.” He patted Geralt’s hand somewhat awkwardly. “Our dear friend Master Regis was really not over-exaggerating the effects of his home brewing. Why, we’ll need to take some of this on the road, of course. Provided he won’t miss any.”

“I think that ship has sailed already.”

“It would do wonders for your joints, I’m certain. No more sleepless nights, no more… medications for your pain… ha, no more Witcher’s potions, I’ll bet that hooch is potent enough to make you forget everything and anything… and what a lovely thing that would be, eh? To forget all our worldly woes and sink into a mandrake stupour.”

“Dandelion,” Geralt said again, holding the poet upright and meeting his gaze, “forgive me for saying so, but your words are perfectly arranged in such a way as to make quite little sense, although you’re saying quite a lot.”

“Well, I should hope so. I’m gloriously fucking drunk, Geralt. People say things when they’re drunk. People say things when they have things to say, when meaning cannot be—cannot—”

He paused then, staring unseeingly into the forest beyond one of Geralt’s ears, and moaned softly.

“Oh, devil take me, Geralt. So much to say, and my tongue has packed a bag and my mind has… my reason… oh, there’s no reasoning with it. Not anymore.”

“Dandelion, you’re worrying me.”

Dandelion hiccuped sadly.

“Worry not, my dear Witcher. Not for me, but for everyone else. These are unusual circumstances. Civilization is crumbling around us, the Squirrels are hunting a Wolf, the night sky is as bright as day and in the day the skies are as dark as night. Stands to reason, I would think, that one can be pardoned for worrying behaviour in these times. Gods know you’ve been acting a little odd for the last few days.”

Geralt pressed his lips together as Dandelion’s expression grew clouded. “I’ve had a lot to think about the last few days.”

“Oh, you most certainly have,” Dandelion murmured. “Yes, you’ve had so much to think about, haven’t you? I’m sure you’re the only one thinking anything, while the rest of us are simply walking around without brains in our skulls, without any wit or intelligence… good sense… dullards and drunkards that we are.” He took a breath, swayed closer until Geralt was forced to take his weight, and exhaled a long, heavy puff of steam and moonshine. “Fools, all of us. Every last one of us, Geralt.”

Geralt grimaced and patted the poet’s shoulder. It was the liquor, no doubt, that had caused this, but there was something strange in what he said; inside the hut, as infuriating as his rambling had been, his stories and commentary had at least been decipherable. Now, however, it seemed to Geralt that there was a great deal that needed unpacking nestled among Dandelion’s drunken mumblings, and very little space between them to unpack it.

He straightened the poet’s hat.

“You’re saying a lot of nothing right now, Dandelion, and I don’t want that nothing to sour your good cheer. If you don’t want to speak plainly and coherently, and I suspect that you wouldn’t be capable of it even if you wanted to, then we should both say goodnight while it’s still meaningful and then not speak to one another until the morning.”

Dandelion contemplated that soberly. 

“Okay,” he said, still swaying beneath Geralt’s hand, “well, in that case, goodnight, Geralt.”

“Goodnight, Dandelion.”

“Are you sleeping inside where it’s warm, at least?”

“Probably. In a while.”

“Okay,” Dandelion said. “Then goodnight.”

He weaved somewhat as he made his way back to the shack, but he pushed aside the flap and disappeared inside, miraculously without stumbling into the bushes and falling atop one of the women from Kernow, and only then did Geralt cast his gaze to the moon in exhausted gratefulness.

Before he had a chance to rejoin the party, a part of the party joined him instead; the flap opened, revealing a warm light and loosing a belch of the same wormwood and sage and other herbs that the rest of Geralt’s companions were currently stewing in, and Milva stepped out, squinting into the darkness until she noticed Geralt by the forest’s edge.

“Ah, there’s the great hero,” she called in a voice that was too loud for a forest, but perfectly suited for speaking over drunken dwarves. “I was wondering where you’d got off to. Thought maybe you’d said to hell with the rest of us and gone to Nilfgaard.”

“Dandelion didn’t tell you where I was?”

“He told us everything but,” Milva said, answering Geralt’s frown with a sympathetic expression of her own. “Oh, don’t pull faces like that, or your ugly mug’ll get stuck that way. Ah. Clearly whatever he came out to do didn’t get done… or done well, if you’re in such a foul mood.”

“He’s acting strangely,” Geralt said.

Milva snorted loudly, and one of the horses tied nearby gave an answering snort. “That poetaster? Acting strangely? Yeah, as strange as ale in a cup. Strange as moss on a log. When isn’t he strange?”

“I mean recently. The last few days, he’s been…” Geralt paused, weighing words carefully on his tongue.

He was too slow. “He’s been ballsy, that idiot, is what he’s been,” Milva announced. “And you, what’re you thinking, encouraging him like that? We have to ride to Nilfgaard still, you realize, for your… for Ciri… and somehow I’m the one who’s suffering the most through it all.”

“I’m sorry you have to listen to him.”

“Him? Oh, you idiot, he’s easy to tune out. All I have to do once I hear his voice, or worse, that dreadful instrument, is listen to everything else. No, it’s you. What, you thought you were being sneaky, you and your moaning and sleeping close together like lovebirds nesting? At least he’s quiet about it.”

Geralt was suddenly very thankful for his inability to blush; nonetheless, he felt a heat rise in his chest that felt as though it should have made his skin steam in the cold. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Who cares? It’s not me who has to put up with him. Not forever, at least. And if it puts you in a better mood than this, I’d gladly put his hands on you myself.”

Geralt scratched at the side of his cheek, slowly losing a fight against the urge to cover his face entirely.

“We… uh.”

“Really, I don’t care,” Milva said bluntly. “At least he’s not fucking a goat.”

“He’s not fucking me, either.”

“He could do worse than you, Witcher. And you could probably do worse than…” 

She trailed off as a sudden outburst of laughter and roaring rocked the shack; no one voice could be picked out above the rest, save for Field Marshal Windbag’s familiar squawking, but Geralt had no doubt that Dandelion, having rejoined the fray, had made himself the center of attention once more.

Milva huffed a quiet laugh, and Geralt felt oddly reassured by it. 

“Anyway,” she said, “I assume that’s all done for tonight, or else will be done when we’re trying to sleep off the booze. So why exactly are you delaying going back inside?”

Geralt did not respond to her jab about Dandelion. Instead, he told her about the journey he’d calculated in his head.

In the morning, Dandelion said nothing, and Geralt said nothing too.

V

_IX. On Matters of Emotion_

_It is untrue that Witchers lack emotion due to their mutations, and similarly untrue that they lack the ability to express it. It would suffice for any man to see a Witcher such as G. agree to a contract in which a reduced payment has been negotiated, or to see a Witcher forgo payment entirely upon completion of a contract for any number of reasons._

_It would also suffice for any man to see a Witcher aiding men in need, especially in situations that pose great risk to the Witcher himself, to admit that a certain amount of emotion is being expressed, albeit unconsciously. I have seen Witchers experience many emotions. Anger, disgust, frustration, hatred… and also joy, amusement, hopefulness, optimism, and love._

_To suggest that a Witcher is incapable of feeling is to suggest that he is dead._

— Dandelion, _Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia_

Peepers peeped invisibly among the willows on the bank of the Yaruga, giving the impression that something important must have been happening; yet apart from the night life, the sound of water lapping gently at the shore, and the occasional sound of long-burnt logs grating against one another and then disintegrating into embers and ash, the shoreline was almost suspiciously quiet.

Regis, having once again been tolerated by Geralt only long enough for him to check Dandelion’s head wound and change his dressing, had disappeared into the night, taking his wormwood and aniseed and soup seasonings with him. 

Milva, exhausted and with a full belly, had tried to remain awake, likely hoping to catch a conversation between Geralt and Regis or Geralt and Cahir, but had succeeded only in watching Geralt whittle a willowstick down into a perfect approximation of a much tinier willowstick, and seemed to have given up after Geralt snapped it between his fingers and tossed it in among the gently-smoking embers. 

Cahir kept his distance and his silence both, but slept facing the fire. Geralt had little to say to him, especially now that he had joined the ranks of their strange troupe and had been accepted without much fuss. It bothered him especially that Dandelion had not argued against it, but Cahir from Vico-wherever was now a sort of personal hero of Dandelion’s, it seemed, having rescued his horse and lute. And there was strength in numbers, or so Dandelion had insinuated earlier, while Geralt was still fuming over their idle chatter. 

Geralt doubted very much that he would have thought that way if the group had turned on him instead. 

The poet was still awake, miraculously. Regis had given him some sort of anti-inflammatory agent to reduce pain and prevent infection before he’d left, but Dandelion, curled up on his side with a small mountain of blankets supporting his head, still watched the fire with a somewhat vacant gaze. Geralt could see the light gleaming in his half-open eyes, and wished very suddenly that he could, like Regis, know with a smell or a glance everything that was happening inside his head.

_A sense of guilt,_ the vampire had said. _The need for expiation. A debt to pay off._

Geralt was perhaps more angry now with Regis than before. It bothered him to hear Regis speak, even when it was without that smugness. It bothered him even more to realize that much of what he said rang true in many ways.

“I have something to ask you, if you’re still awake.”

Dandelion blinked sleepily, looking as if he’d been jerked from a dream. “Hm? Me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” The poet made a motion as if to push himself up, then winced, felt the side of his head, and checked his fingertips with a grimace. “Well, I can’t read your mind from over here, try as you might to communicate it with your various expressions of great discomfort. You look like you have a question only a trip to the bushes could answer.”

Geralt turned the small whittling knife in his fingers and looked down at it for a moment. “I wanted to ask you about…”

“About?”

“I wanted to ask about… your… our…” Geralt took a breath, steadied the knife, and felt its sharp point against the pad of his thumb. Though not painful, it kept his mind away from other things that threatened to stab at him. “Fraternizing.”

“...Fraternizing,” Dandelion repeated, giving a soft snort. “With…?”

His eyes moved in the direction of Cahir, a silent question. Geralt shook his head.

“Not like that.”

“Then say it plainly. You’re giving me a headache.”

“I mean… after we left Brokilon. Before we met up with Zoltan.”

Dandelion blinked at him with that same slow, sleepy quality. Then it clicked, and his expression became disappointed, then evened out and became pointedly neutral. “Oh. Fraternizing, of course… well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer not to talk about any such thing right now. Polite company, you see. And even the cattails have ears, or so I’ve heard.” 

Geralt listened patiently, just to prove that there were more trustworthy ears nearby.

“They’re asleep,” he said. “And unless someone is listening from the cattails or lurking in the riverbed, we shouldn’t be disturbed.”

Dandelion settled back atop his pillow of blankets and gazed at Geralt with his lips pressed into a thin line.

“Well,” he said, keeping his voice low enough that the river occasionally burbled over it, “what precisely do you want to ask, Geralt? Because if you’re looking for anything from me tonight, I’ll need to respectfully decline. My hands won’t be steady for at least another week, I think, after all of this.”

Geralt’s stomach made a motion so uncomfortable that it felt for a moment as if his fish soup had contained something still living.

“Is that what you think I was going to ask? You think that after all that we’ve experienced, especially in these last few days, that all I want is the company of your hands?”

“I wouldn’t blame you if that were the case,” Dandelion said, and although his voice was low, he spoke with a bitterness so sharp that Geralt could taste it in the air. “I know how lonely it is out here, especially for you, lone wolf that you are. And if it helps you keep a keen mind and sharp wits, and makes you feel a bit better about all of this, I don’t mind doing it, at least until you decide to relieve yourself of so many burdens and send me away for good. But if you don’t object, Geralt, I simply won’t do it tonight.”

He began to turn onto his other side, grimacing again as he started to turn his back to the fire, and Geralt felt himself overwhelmed suddenly with a helplessness that burned in his throat.

“Damnit, Dandelion,” he growled. Dandelion paused to send him a severe look, and a quiet snort from Cahir made both of them freeze—but he was still sleeping, and so it didn’t stop them for long. “That isn’t what I’m asking. I’m offering to…”

“...Stab me? Put me out of my misery?”

Too late, Geralt realized that he was still fidgeting with his knife. “No. I’m offering to… reciprocate. If you’ll let me.”

Dandelion held his gaze so heavily that Geralt felt as though he had to physically bear its weight. He did not yet realize what it was about that look that caused him to ache so terribly all of a sudden, but as Dandelion continued to turn over and settled into place on his blanket, Geralt realized that he was, at long last, experiencing the one thing he had never, ever expected from the poet.

“I genuinely appreciate the timeliness of your offer, Geralt, but I’m afraid I must decline this time. Thank you.”

Geralt thumbed the blade again, frowning at Dandelion’s turned back. “If I ask tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Dandelion sighed without looking back. “Maybe not. Because I have recently discovered myself short of quite a bit of blood, and to be frank, I would prefer not to risk becoming hypotensive and fainting if at all possible, at least until we reach a safe haven.”

“You didn’t lose that much blood.”

“I lost enough.”

“If not that, then would you allow me to…?”

He could hear that Dandelion had taken a breath, and feared suddenly and for the first time that anything he said next might shatter what had slowly begun to crystallize in his mind.

So he said nothing at all.

Dandelion snorted again, very quietly.

“Mm. Goodnight, Geralt.”

Wordlessly, Geralt climbed to his feet and strode away from the campfire, weaving between the sleeping bodies of Milva and Cahir in his quest to move as far from Dandelion as possible; he soon found himself in a thicket of lush greenery, and moved until he had put enough foliage and flora between himself and the campsite so as to block it from his sight entirely.

He moved until the forest began to smell of wormwood.

“He was right, you know,” said a voice somewhere on Geralt’s left. There was, quite notably, no visible mouth delivering it. “I wouldn’t advise something like that, not with his head wound so fresh.”

“It was barely a scratch.”

“To you, perhaps,” Regis said. “To him, it was a grievous wound, and one he will never forget as, if I may be so presumptuous, being the nearest encounter with death he has had with you by his side.”

“Strangely, I cannot tell if I am being chastised or praised. I can’t help but feel it’s both.”

“I’m stating a fact. It doesn’t have to be chastisement or praise. The truth is that he was in a situation of grave peril, and escaped with a wound that will cause no major lasting effects. You saved his life. That’s a fact.”

Geralt searched for something to sit on, but simply settled for lowering himself to the ground instead. His knife, which he had not yet put away, he sank into the soft earth. “Since you’re so fond of stating facts and giving impressions of cattails, perhaps you can tell me whether I would have placed him in more peril, had I not exercised caution with his blood pressure.”

“No,” Regis said with a closed-lipped smile in his voice, “I don’t think that would have been an issue. He didn’t lose that much blood.”

Geralt rested his head in his hands and stared down at a twig. He could not see Regis, but he could track him by the usual means, now that he knew what to look for; light though they were, his footfalls still had to displace earth, and he could not stop small ferns from shivering in his wake. The scent of herbs radiated from him like an aura. And, based solely on how intensely his medallion had begun to tremble against his chest, Geralt could state with near certainty that Regis had just sat next to him.

“You’re frustrated.”

“He’s frustrating.”

“He is,” Regis agreed lightly. “And he has a bad habit of revealing more than intended, which I sense is the source of more than one of your frustrations. Not the case? Hm. No, I suppose it would not bother you, someone thinking that. Well, you tell me, since it seems I am only able to intuit so much and observe so much more.”

“I have nothing to tell. But I might ask, since it seems you are able to intuit and observe my existing debts and guilt with ease, and likely intuited and observed the entirety of my conversation: what mistake did I make?”

“Oh, you didn’t make any mistake, Geralt. Your offer was simply in poor taste.” 

Geralt had not wished to connect his fist with an invisible individual so thoroughly and desperately in quite a long time. 

Regis continued: “If I may speak plainly, and I hope that you will allow me to without turning your back on me again... speaking solely on the subject of your relationship with our dear friend, although you believe the reciprocation of such niceties to be a noble and just undertaking, your hero’s task will ultimately serve no purpose. It seems that what our friend Dandelion needs and wants is immeasurably of more import than some physical pleasure in the sense that what he needs and wants is a friend. He’s frightened and in pain, and understandably so. A hand down his trousers would not have been enough to reassure him of your loyalty, but it might have suggested that you view such exchanges as—”

“Let me guess: repaying a debt.”

“—or a transaction, yes,” Regis finished. Geralt had nothing to glower at, and so he fixated on a nearby tree trunk instead, and busied his hands with stabbing his knife repeatedly into the ground. “And while such intimacies are not infrequently offered in times of travel and among close friends, I do not believe you would be here speaking with me if you viewed this… fraternization, as you succinctly put it… as only a favour to be passed back and forth. And if you did, it would reflect poorly upon you, for it would demonstrate that you lack the emotional capacity to understand it for what it is, or wish to limit it only to what you believe it to be.”

“So what I believe it to be may not be what it is, is that what you’re suggesting?”

“I’m not sure,” Regis said quietly. “What, exactly, do you believe it to be?”

“I don’t know,” Geralt muttered, still gouging at the dirt. “Herein lies our problem.”

“Well, it certainly will be _our_ problem, if it continues to sour his mood. It will leech what little good cheer any of us can muster, and will leave both of you unfulfilled, physically and emotionally.”

Geralt sighed. The humming of his medallion changed; it felt as though Regis had begun to pace around him. He dug deeper into the dirt, scowling as though it had personally offended him. “Well, what more should I do, since you’re so knowledgeable about my friends and their needs?”

“He’s your friend. You tell me.”

“Better to tell you than him. I can’t say or offer anything in return without insulting him, apparently. I can’t get him to tell me what he wants from me, and yet everyone else seems to know perfectly well what he’s after. How, precisely, am I to divine what his desires are when we can’t speak freely without being interrupted or eavesdropped upon, and when he refuses to tell me outright what he wants? How do I tell him without offending that I have no more knowledge of his wants than I have knowledge of my own? 

“You said physically and emotionally. What, does he wish for me to—to profess some deep emotion for him? Tell him that I couldn’t leave him behind and that I saved him from being trampled by the Nilfgaardian army because he is my oldest, and sometimes I think only, friend? Tell him that I recognize and feel terrible that I have not been able to see how strangely he has been behaving and that I still cannot think of a reason for it, except that I have been emotionally unfulfilling in a time when my focus is trained on a faraway land and a seemingly insurmountable task? Tell him that despite his following me blindly into the depths of hell with no guarantee of safe return, I have nothing to offer except the opportunity to escape this march toward death by taking refuge in war-ravaged lands instead, which is hardly any safer at all because I don’t know anyone more concerned about his well-being and more capable of ensuring it? He and Milva didn’t seem to like that suggestion very much, but it’s the best I’ve got.

“...Still, he doesn’t want to hear that from me, goddamnit. I’m already taking freely from him and giving nothing in return. He’s been by my side from the beginning, and for what? He was right. I owe everything to the people that I travel with, and most of all to him. He knows that well enough. Why should I expect him to give me the answers freely, when I could learn a more valuable lesson by searching within myself? Why continue to run up a debt when I could settle it instead?

“...Regis?”

The forest had gone terribly silent. The ferns had ceased their shivering, and his medallion lay still beneath his shirt.

“Well, you can take your batty smugness and shove it up your batty arse,” Geralt muttered, pushing himself to his feet. He wiped off his knife and nudged the displaced earth back into place with his boot. “I would have gotten there eventually.”

A gentle breeze blew, rustling the leaves overhead and the ferns that grew to his knees. _Not soon enough_ , the wind seemed to say.

When he returned to the campsite on the riverbank, he discovered Regis sleeping peacefully among the willows. Dandelion, having found a comfortable position and some peace and quiet in which to fall asleep, breathed deeply and slowly. The breeze, which had gripped the thin line of smoke still curling from the sad embers of the fire and severed it entirely, gently moved a few strands of the poet’s hair that had escaped being bandaged up.

Geralt sat near him on the sand and spent the night deep in thought. When the need for sleep became too great to ignore, he pulled his blanket over Dandelion, rested an arm around the poet’s middle, and did not move until morning.

VI

_On Matters of Love and Desire_

_I stated previously that Witchers were capable of experiencing love. This I still believe to be true, and the physiological markers of desire and arousal manifest in all the expected ways. The mutated and cat-like pupils of a Witcher, upon seeing a creature or an item that they desire, dilate unconsciously; the respiratory rate increases; the glands of the mouth produce excess saliva, as in a hungry carnivore, or else cease functioning entirely, leaving a dryness of the mouth and throat. Good sense often takes leave, for desire and love are forces so primal that they cause one to abandon all reason._

_Each reaction above is most typically under conscious control. Yet which animal or man is capable of controlling feelings of desire?_

_Although it may be instinctual for a Witcher to grow to care for another, cases have been recorded in which it may cause some discomfort to understand and acknowledge such an emotion. In my research and according to my sources, it is invariably the case that experiencing such a feeling for another is for Witchers like being a fish in an iron pot: although the water seems perfectly natural, one will inevitably stew in it, and ultimately discover that he has been consumed only when the jaws have closed._

— Dandelion, _Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia_

_To most accurately understand the ferocity of a Witcher, I ask you to picture a wild animal: a predator with teeth and claws and the bloodthirsty, unthinking instincts of one for whom killing is not only useful, but imperative._

_A bear. A griffin._

_A wolf._

— Dandelion, _Monstrum Volume II, or A More Faithful Depiction of Witchers_

“Surely whatever those memoirs contain can’t be that important to him.”

“You would be surprised,” Geralt said stonily, shifting uncomfortably in his saddle, “what importance can be granted to something that ultimately holds no significance at all.”

Cahir, who had just returned from a brief jaunt into the bushes, pulled himself up onto his horse and made a thoughtful noise. It had been he who had noticed that the tube of parchments and papers normally kept so close to the poet had gone missing; Geralt had been somewhat preoccupied with the pervasive pain and unrelenting stiffness that had settled into his knee with the rain and early autumn chill. It did indeed not escape Geralt’s notice that each time he rubbed at it, his mind turned traitorously and inevitably to the brief but welcome respite from the pain that Dandelion had granted him before. He simply forced himself to think of something else. 

It felt as if it had been an eternity since then. The war-ravaged road through Angren, the crossing of the Yaruga, the Lyrian army, the battle on the bridge, Milva...

So much had changed.

“Well, that’s one way of putting it. But it’s strange—I can’t tell if it’s his newfound hobby that so irritates you to the point of looking like you’ve been struck with gastritis, or if it’s the idea of speaking with me that bothers your bowels.”

“I consider both to be a nuisance.”

“Ah, to be on equal footing with Dandelion in your eyes. I should consider it an honour.” Cahir glanced up and squinted at the sky, which watched them with an unwelcoming and stony countenance, then squinted at Geralt, unaffected by the foul mood that Geralt had tried to project to discourage Cahir from speaking. “It seems to me that he’s unusually overprotective of whatever it is he’s been writing. Considering the content, I don’t imagine that he’s blessing it with the honour of wiping his arse. Has he always been so...?”

“Protective of his secrets?” Geralt paused to grit his teeth for reasons unrelated to Dandelion and his writings. Pain, mostly. Also that he had suggested Regis and Milva carry on ahead while they attended to their business. “Full of shit?”

“I’m not the one who said it.” Cahir pretended not to notice that Geralt could not find a comfortable position for his leg, and thankfully said nothing as Geralt eventually relented and hopped down from his mare to stretch his knee and hip a bit better. “And with the way he speaks of you, I’m not surprised he is. Protective, I mean.”

“I don’t particularly care what does or doesn’t surprise you.”

“I’m starting to get that impression. Ah, speak of the devil. Dandelion! I trust you documented your journey into the bushes well?”

As Dandelion emerged from the thick green of Rivendell, Geralt gave his knee another shake and then pulled himself back up into his saddle.

“Yes, quite. This chapter on the unbearable and indescribable stink of Empire shit will surely be one for the history books.”

“Great! Hey, I’ve got an idea for where you can shove that pencil,” Cahir said, already spurring his horse onward to catch up with Regis and Milva, who had continued at a steady walk and were likely close to a furlong ahead. Geralt made it a point not to crack a smile, lest he admit that he Cahir had finally discovered common ground.

Dandelion, though still putting on airs as he mounted Pegasus, clearly had no such reservations. His grin was the sunniest thing any of them had seen all day.

“The nerve of this new generation, Geralt, honestly. Disrespectful, and always sticking their noses where they don’t belong.” Dandelion checked to ensure that his tube of papers was still attached to his back and wholly intact, then clicked his tongue. “Say, wait a tick, if you don’t mind. I have something I’d like to talk to you about. Just give him a minute to, eh… move ahead.”

Geralt reared back and watched as the poet pulled a fresh sheet of paper and retrieved his pencil from behind his unscathed ear. Cahir continued ahead, oblivious to their plot to conspire, while Dandelion, lacking the same tact that the Nilfgaardian had had, circled around Geralt’s opposite side and frowned down at his leg.

“I know that face. Is it bothering you again?”

“It’s fine.”

“Bollocks and shit, you shit. If it were truly fine, as you say, you would have lightened up with Cahir’s departure. I’m used to your excuses, don’t forget. I may not understand why you make them, but I can see as clearly through you as a fish through water.” Dandelion stared at him for a moment, then paused to scribble something on the paper. “Listen, Geralt, I... I know that I haven’t been taking my duties as… hm. I started something and have, quite selfishly, not followed through. So I propose a truce: in the next village, or when we meet the Druids in Caed Dhu, we’ll ask them for their strongest herbal remedies, I will work my magic on your legs and knees as before, and then we’ll—”

Geralt tried to push the thought from his head. “A truce? A truce would imply that a conflict has arisen.”

Dandelion glanced at Geralt’s leg, then studied his face with a furrow in his brow. He didn’t even look at the paper as he scribbled. “I think we can drop all pretence here and agree that one has.”

At last, Geralt thought. It’s taken far too long. “A truce,” he said slowly, “would imply that more than one party is actively engaging in such a conflict.”

Dandelion stopped writing and looked up. “Yes, Geralt. Two parties, I would say. In fact, if you’ll allow me to be so bold, I might even suggest that one party has been especially inflammatory and antagonistic in this conflict, and has taken great efforts to dampen all attempts at resolving the conflict long before now.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“No, Geralt, I’m talking about you.”

The pain in Geralt’s knee only fanned the flames of his irritation, and he felt quite like an inferno around Dandelion as it was. He would grow angrier and angrier and his words would burn if he let them… and he wanted to, as compensation for the torment that he had been subject to over this. 

He opened his mouth, baring his teeth, and then snapped his jaw shut. He spurred Roach onward.

Dandelion followed.

“Fine, since you’re so fond of a fish metaphor, then know this: you’re mistaking me for a salmon thrashing in the water, fighting against a fishing line I didn’t know was there. And in fact, it’s the opposite. I’ve swallowed the hook, Dandelion. I’ve been trying to reconcile. In fact, I’ve been trying to understand at all what it is that’s come between us, do you hear? I’ve tried to approach you about this, and not for the first time now. You won’t speak to me about it when I ask, and I find it insulting that you would suggest I am the root of the issue, when obviously my willingness to cooperate has gone ignored.”

Dandelion drew even with him and studied him sideways. “‘Willingness to cooperate’. Fascinating.”

“I offered”—Geralt glanced ahead again and deemed Cahir too distant to clearly make out their argument, but lowered his voice to a hiss all the same—“to do the same for you. When you were hurt, even. To ease your discomfort and pain. An equal exchange.”

“Indeed. It was unexpectedly generous of you to do so.”

Geralt wished suddenly that he were the horse, so that he could stamp his feet in the dirt and make exasperated noises. “Do you hear yourself? This is what I don’t understand, Dandelion. You wish for peace, you ask for a truce, and yet you tuck your tail between your legs and whine like some spoiled pup when I try to give you what you want.”

“What I want?” 

“Yes, damnit. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Clearly there is something that I have not provided for you, and now I am being punished for it.”

“Ha! Well, if you consider my ministrations punishment, then—”

“For fuck’s sake, Dandelion, stop—”

“No, Geralt, you stop. You stop speaking and listen for once. Because it seems to me that if you were to pay attention, rather than sitting with your head in the Nilfgaardian clouds, ignoring the rest of us alongside you, you would already know what I want. And if you really knew what I wanted,” Dandelion said coldly, folding his paper in half with a severe motion, “then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Then let’s have it,“ Geralt said, exasperated. A droplet of rain hit the side of his nose. Dandelion was already busy tucking his paper away.

“I read once… concerning Witchers… that each of you has special mutant senses that you use to solve your mysteries and identify your monsters using contextual clues and deductive reasoning. Is that true?”

“If you’re going to tell me to figure it out on my own, then I must for the first time agree with our Nilfgaardian friend on where I would prefer to see your pencil go next.”

Dandelion laughed. He looked genuinely amused, which infuriated and baffled Geralt all the more.

Worse, he said nothing.

The silence stretched.

“All right.” The Witcher pulled up his mantle. More rain had begun to patter down through the leaves, the same dreary drizzle that they had grown used to through the end of the summer. “Let’s try this, and you tell me if I’m wrong: you won’t let anyone look at your manuscript, and you take special precautions to conceal from me the contents of the page and the movement of your hand while you write. You don’t want me to read or decipher your words, whatever they may be. You’re writing slowly, which means you’re taking time to craft your sentences carefully, and seeing as you’re admittedly quite good at improvising, this in turn means what you’re writing is the truth, or close to it. So you’re writing something concerning me. Or something inspired by me.”

Dandelion chewed on his lip. “How astute an observation, considering all that I do is inspired by you.”

“You said you read a book about Witchers.”

The poet scoffed. “There are no books about Witchers.”

“You read a passage about Witchers. Something that was presented as truth, clearly by someone who had never met a Witcher or inquired about one’s process.”

Dandelion gazed down at his hands, where he had begun to wring the pencil somewhat nervously between his fingers. “Assuming that we have no knowledge of who the author was, or who their sources were… is it the truth that Witchers gain sexual satisfaction from killing?”

Geralt thought for a long moment. He opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again, and thought harder. “Are you afraid that I’ll have to harm you to be satisfied sexually?”

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to correct such a falsehood if I don’t have a truth to replace it with. As far as the world knows, murder is pleasurable to mutants and monster-killers.”

“Which you understand is not the case. And you know first-hand that it does not take something nearly as unnecessary as killing to… get things going. So…” Geralt rubbed thoughtfully at his jaw. “You’re trying to figure out what does please me, if not in a clinical sense then at least for your own curiosity… and you’re writing about it so that you can put the public at ease about what does and doesn’t contribute to a Witcher’s orgasm.”

Dandelion said nothing. 

“Well,” Geralt said, relaxing in his saddle, “I suppose it all makes sense to me now.”

“Does it?”

“Yes and no. It does explain why you haven’t asked for reciprocation, if your interest is purely academic and professional in nature, but it doesn’t explain why you won’t allow it when freely offered. Even if I did believe that this was a purely academic affair, there’s no reason why you, a perfectly virile young man, should refuse me.”

“You, the deserter knight, the lone wolf extraordinaire, are the last person I would expect to be upset about being rejected... ah, but who’s making it personal now, hm?”

Geralt’s narrowed eyes made Dandelion shift in his saddle.

“Well, fine. Have you considered that I’m like a virgin, shy and inexperienced and unfamiliar with a man’s brutish touch?”

Geralt laughed, a sound like a bark. “No, Dandelion, believe it or not, that thought hadn't occurred to me.”

For a while, they walked in silence. The horses snorted occasionally, and Roach’s ear flicked irritably. He wondered what sort of conversation a mare and a gelding might have, and whether it was any more sensible than the one he was currently wading through.

“So… I’ve answered your questions. Now I have some of my own. You were offering to do it for me because I was in pain?”

“Isn’t that in part the reason for your… stimulating?”

“For research, Geralt.”

“One doesn’t negate the other.”

“Yes, well, I’m not in pain anymore. Not great pain, anyway. I can manage.”

“I know. I still would.” Geralt waited a moment, then said: “You don’t have to agree now. Or at all, if it truly makes you uncomfortable. Think about it. I’ll think about it too. Reflect on my behaviour. Maybe I’ll be able to give you some… secrets of Witchers. Information that will make you a famed researcher in the area.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be famous for it,” Dandelion said in a voice which suggested the opposite. “I’d simply like to set the story straight. It’s the truth that people will remember, Geralt, long after I’ve returned to the earth. Truth is like a… a…”

“A Witcher,” Geralt supplied after a moment’s thought. “Elusive. Stubborn. Worth seeking out.”

The poet’s smile seemed, for only a fraction of an instant, somewhat sad. Whatever shadow had passed over him did not linger; his eyes took on a familiar sparkling, mischievous quality. The same one that Geralt remembered from the night spent at Regis’s cottage.

“Rather quick to get an erection.”

“Well, that too,” Geralt agreed. He thought of Dandelion’s hand creeping slowly and purposefully up his thigh and was thankful, once again, that Witchers could not blush. And for the mantle that would have hidden it regardless.

VII

_Revision: Upon revisiting the question of my decision to travel with Geralt of Rivia and to learn from him, and not from other Witchers either young or old, I have come to several conclusions._

_One: there are no Witchers of old left anymore. I have heard tales of Witchers well beyond a century in age, but have full confidence that they do not often reach such an age and maintain it for long. If such Witchers exist in the world, somehow able to lay down their sword and maintain some quiet and dignified privacy in their second century or more, it is by choice, and by choice they shall remain quiet and dignified and undiscovered for as long as they so choose._

_Two: there are no young Witchers in the world today. Although this I cannot prove outright, I similarly cannot disprove it, despite my decades of truth-seeking and truth-discovering. I have never to my knowledge met a Witcher younger than G., yet he has insisted to me on multiple occasions that there are no mages or alchemists alive today who are capable of facilitating the process of creating new Witchers, a process which was survived by fewer than half of the candidates who underwent it when Witchers were still being manufactured. Yes, I say manufactured, but dear reader, you know already the Trials that Witchers must undergo_ —as detailed in Monstrum Volume II, or A More Faithful Depiction of Witchers— _and I will say no more on the subject, as this manuscript seeks to answer more important questions. Thus I must conclude that if any younger Witcher exists in this world, he is lying an unmarked grave in a partial or full state of decay, or else is undergoing that terrible and inevitable process called aging and will not remain young for much longer._

_And thirdly: despite having no memory-laden older Witchers with whom to share a drink and a story or younger Witchers with puffed-up chests like frigatebirds in the mating season nearby, I admit that I never once felt as though I were settling for some subpar experience in all my worldly travels. For this, my final conclusion, is thus: in my travels I had grown undeniably and inadvisably fond of Geralt of Rivia, and that is all that I am willing and able to say on the matter._

— Dandelion, revised foreword to _Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia_

“We would have been just as comfortable making camp outside.”

“Stop whining, or else I’ll send you out with a kick in the arse and you can spend the evening with those hamadryads.”

“I’m just saying we could have done better.”

“You’re joking. This room is as good as a palace,” Dandelion insisted, sweeping a hand out and indicating with his pencil the cramped, tiny quarters that the innkeeper had offered to rent them. The poet had taken to it like a bird to the sky, and had stretched out comfortably on the bed, writing by the last fading bits of sunlight that shone through the single grimy window.

Geralt thought better of suggesting that the room was as good as a pigsty, or as fragrant as a shithole, or as atmospheric as a holding cell before one was marched off to the gallows. It was the first night he’d spent in an inn since the summer, and the first time in a long time he would be able to sleep in a genuine bed with genuine pillows. The first time since Aretuza.

Nothing would match the luxuries of Aretuza, and yet anything in the world would be better than Aretuza.

It pained him greatly to think of how long they had spent on the road, and how quickly autumn had arrived, and how soon the snow would find them. He sighed, sat near the fire that crackled and danced in the hearth, and tried to fill his thoughts with other things.

“Anything I can help with?”

“Not yet. Once I’ve finished chronicling the day’s journey and am prepared to set the record straight on a few things, I will let you know.”

Geralt straightened out his leg and exhaled slowly. Dandelion looked up from his paper, made a face of disapproval, and sighed.

“Do you have anything with you that could help? Is there something that Regis could make for you?”

Geralt shook his head, and suddenly it was as if he could smell the mandrake and myriad of strange herbs in the vampire’s shack. “Nothing that would address the cause. Only the symptoms.”

Dandelion hummed, then began to rifle through his papers, muttering under his breath until he pulled out a sheet that had previously been written on. Geralt could not help but wonder exactly how much was about him.

“What does it feel like?”

“Like an interrogation.”

“I’m asking you because I want to know, you idiot. Is it getting worse?”

“The cold bothers it,” Geralt said after a moment. “And the rain. Lately, it feels as if that’s all we’ve found. Rain and cold.”

“And pain.”

“And pain.”

Dandelion made a soft sound and head Geralt’s face for a moment. “It’s no wonder you’ve been so miserable.” He set his papers aside and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his brows knitting together with a deep concern. “I don’t know if I… mentioned this, before we left Brokilon, but… I’m glad that bastard wounded you. It seems to me that he was trying to show you that he could have killed you outright, and easily. So I’m glad it was your leg and your arm. Glad because it means you’re still alive, and not… rotting away in some dungeon.”

Geralt watched him gather up his papers and pencils and set them aside on the single small table that the room boasted. He seemed sheepish all of a sudden, restless. It only made sense, as Dandelion rarely revealed things so close to his heart.

“I’m glad too, even if I don’t show it. Should I give you some... emotional reaction? For your esteemed work?”

“No,” the poet said quietly. “No, there’s no need to put on a performance. I simply wanted you to hear that.”

He lowered himself onto the floor next to Geralt and sighed, shoulders drooping visibly in relief as the warmth washed over him. He had stopped bandaging the wound over his temple and had begun to let it air, and Geralt frowned at it while the poet made himself comfortable on the floor, which was not particularly comfortable at all.

_I don’t understand you,_ he wanted to say. _You claim to be interested in my responses only for academic purposes, and plan to poke and prod me until you get a reaction. You let me hold you in the night, and clam up about it in the morning. You talk vaguely about wanting to forget things that you’re even more vague about. You say people speak when they have things to speak about, and yet you refuse to speak about anything. Why is it that I seem to be the last to understand? Milva thinks we take comfort in one another. Regis seems to think that I can fulfill some part of you yet unfulfilled. Even Cahir, damn him, seems to think that you think highly of me, and what does he know? More than I do, it seems._

_And what do you understand of me? For all the data and tidbits you’ve gathered, all of the inaccuracies you’ve made accurate, what have you learned of me?_

He blinked and looked down as Dandelion inched closer to him.

“Well, I suppose there’s no sense in waiting, eh? You don’t have any other commitments on this fine evening, do you?”

“Only this one,” Geralt said. “And I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

It may simply have been a trick of the flickering firelight, but it seemed to him that Dandelion blushed.

“Perfect. Take off your trousers, then. Oh, don’t give me that look. It works better if I can touch your skin, unless you’d prefer to leave your clothes on.”

“Would you be more comfortable?”

“Geralt,” Dandelion said. It was the shortest way he knew to say ‘I’ve seen you in too many odd situations without your clothes on to care’, and surprisingly, it put Geralt at ease.

“Do you want me to stay on the floor?”

“What are we, animals?”

Geralt chuckled and lifted himself carefully.

“Oh, you don’t have to…”

“I thought you said it was better if you touch my skin.”

“...Yeah, I did say that.” Dandelion sat on the edge of the bed once Geralt, having taken the liberty of shedding all of his clothing and not just the necessary bits, had settled into place and rested his hand on Geralt’s knee. Somehow, it seemed that his skin was even warmer than the fire had been. He gave Geralt a questioning look, then shifted his gaze to the pillow that Geralt had just made himself comfortable on. “May I?”

Geralt handed it to him wordlessly, and in exchange Dandelion handed him his own rolled-up cloak with an apologetic expression.

“It’ll be better this way.”

“Did the medical students teach you that too?”

Geralt resisted the urge to pull away as Dandelion touched his knee again, feather-light, then gave the muscle above it a gentle squeeze. It still wasn’t entirely back to normal, but Dandelion seemed to have no interest in comparing knees, despite the view Geralt had given him. He watched Geralt’s face instead, and began to demonstrate the techniques that the medical students had taught him, first with one hand, then with two.

The pain in Geralt’s knee lessened after some time. Geralt couldn’t tell if it was because he was out of the cold and rain, or if Dandelion’s hands, spanning the circumference of his thigh as he kneaded with his knuckles and thumbs and fingers, were distraction enough to make him forget about it… and he was not certain that it mattered. He was affected either way.

“Be so kind as to put that away, please.”

“I thought you wanted the truth about Witchers.” Geralt shifted one leg, spreading his thighs wider.

“The search for the truth about Witchers comes after, and now isn’t the time for drawing swords. This,” Dandelion said, giving Geralt’s leg a gentle squeeze, “is the part I have been neglecting. You’re supposed to do it regularly, if you want to ease the pain more effectively.”

“I’m surprised you’re able to maintain such professionalism.”

“Geralt, my dear, you do not make nearly as seductive or alluring a scene as you might think. Maybe if this were a palace, and you were tastefully nude, surrounded by lavish bed linens and rich drapery and many of those comfortable little pillows, this might be some blushing maiden’s dream.”

Geralt snorted and gave Dandelion a gentle nudge with his foot, but the poet was nonplussed; he gently maneuvered Geralt’s leg around him and over his lap, and sat with both thighs bracketing him. On the other hand, he paid more attention now, Geralt noticed, to what his hands were doing; he turned his hand sideways as his kneading took him closer to the inside of Geralt’s thigh, and shifted the pressure carefully so that it was evenly applied across his hand. 

On the first night, Geralt had not really noticed his technique, preoccupied as he’d been with the pain and the novelty of Dandelion’s touch; but now the pain was somewhat lessened, and the poet’s touch was not unfamiliar, and it was easy to detect precisely which of the techniques he had picked up in Oxenfurt. Including the ones that hurt more.

“How is it?”

“Good,” Geralt murmured, fighting the urge to let his eyes close. He knew that he would only see images in his mind of Dandelion’s lessons if he did. And lessons that Dandelion had not yet taught him. “Quite good.”

“And your knee?”

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”

If Dandelion made any attempts not to puff up like a proud peacock after that, it was not apparent to Geralt.

After what felt like an insufficient amount of time, he turned again and began working on Geralt’s better leg. The left side was notably more sore, initially, but Dandelion’s rhythm and pressure remained perfectly measured. It was better when the poet watched his hands, but he still glanced at Geralt’s face on occasion—searching for specific responses, no doubt.

And once the discomfort subsided, there was only one response that Geralt was able to give.

Dandelion glanced at his face, then down, then back up. The room seemed to have grown warmer around them; Dandelion radiated warmth. “I thought I told you to behave.”

“I thought you said you wanted to know what provokes a Witcher’s interest. You wanted the truth.”

Dandelion hummed softly, hands stilling as he drew himself upright between Geralt’s legs. He slid his hands up Geralt’s thighs, along the outside of his hips, and onto the scarred plane of his abdomen. His fingers splayed and fit neatly between Geralt’s ribs.

The fabric of his shirt brushed gently against Geralt’s skin, and the Witcher shivered involuntarily.

“Dandelion...”

“Sh. I’m still working.”

The poet began to apply pressure to Geralt’s torso with long, sure strokes, starting with a singular pressure along the midline of his body and that diverged and covered him bilaterally and symmetrically, like a swimmer cutting through water. He was gradually working his way from Geralt’s abdomen up toward his chest, and seemed intent on taking his time. 

“Heh. Are you doing that on purpose?”

“Hm?”

“Your eyes.”

Geralt blinked. “I can do it on purpose if you’d prefer.”

The room seemed to darken, but the small upward quirk of Dandelion’s mouth was still easily visible. “No, that’s more than alright. What else can you control? Smell? Hearing? Can you dull your nerve endings?”

The Witcher took a sharp breath as Dandelion raked his nails over his chest. He was keenly aware of the position that Dandelion had assumed between his legs, and he felt suddenly like a frog splayed on a dissection board, pinned by the poet’s hands in a position of his own choosing.

“I can not only smell but taste the porridge you had for breakfast,” he murmured. “I can hear our neighbour walking across the floorboards with a limp on one side. I can hear your knees creaking when you shift your weight forward. I can detect how much effort it takes for you to hold yourself above me without getting too close by your breath alone, but I can still feel the warmth from your chest when you lean down close enough.”

Dandelion swallowed. He had done an excellent job of maintaining his composure, Geralt thought, but he had no control over the flush that crept over his skin, or the clamminess of his palms. There were a great many things that Geralt had registered, so many things that he simply couldn’t ignore, and that was why he allowed himself to respond so openly.

But he continued.

“Can you change your heart rate? Control your blood pressure? Can you stop sweating if you force yourself? Release more adrenaline? Can you increase or slow your digestion?”

“Surely that passage you read didn’t make any strange claims about my bowels.”

“You’re supposed to be satisfying my curiosity,” Dandelion said. He slid his hands over Geralt’s pectorals, stretching his arms ahead like a great cat, then shifted forward and, bracing his weight on his elbows, lowered himself atop the Witcher with great care. “Come on. Indulge me. I promise to make it worth your while.”

“Aren’t you worried that bribing subjects will ruin your scholarly reputation and debase your research?”

“Not in the least,” Dandelion said sunnily, shifting his hips until they were in the correct position. “I only need facts, Geralt. It’s not important how I obtain my information, only that I verify it.”

“Do you plan to interrogate my bowel movements to determine whether they’ve been forcibly stalled?”

“No, I assume you’ll be honest and sincere with me, instead of sarcastic and evasive and unnecessarily esoteric. We have, in case it has somehow escaped your notice, arrived at the truth-telling portion of this evening.”

Geralt, understanding that there was no longer a version of this evening in which he escaped without being thoroughly investigated, allowed himself to register Dandelion’s weight and warmth with all of his senses, and resolved to be more truthful in his responses.

“Fine. May I ask how long you intend to keep me here?”

“Let’s say…” Dandelion rested his chin against Geralt’s chest and, without breaking eye contact, ground forward and downward. “Until I’m satisfied.”

The noise Geralt made then was the first of many truths he would utter for several minutes; he answered Dandelion’s questions with dwindling patience and eloquence, and repaid Dandelion’s curiosity with some of his own—namely his curiosity about how Dandelion might respond to having both of Geralt’s hands on his backside.

Favourably, it seemed, was the answer.

The point at which Dandelion stopped asking questions entirely coincided with the point at which Geralt decided to lift his legs and enclose the poet in a vice-like grip, with each seeming to occur after a great deal of time, and in fact only taking fewer than five minutes to occur. It was an interview that felt as if it had taken hours, but was closer in length to the amount of time it would take to teach a poet how to write an academic essay—which, in the case of Dandelion, was not long at all, and would eventually involve quite a lot of improvising. 

Dandelion, still entirely clothed and covered now in a sheen of sweat, had shifted up just enough to maximize the contact between himself and Geralt’s body, and appeared to take great pleasure in his position. The tenor of his voice had dropped considerably to a pitch that Geralt was mostly familiar with only through the barrier of doors and walls, and most of the poet’s linguistic cleverness, along with his admirably long-lasting stoicism, had deteriorated greatly. 

He also boasted an admirably long-lasting erection, and Geralt wanted very much to get his hands on it.

“Dandelion,” Geralt hissed, and was taken aback when Dandelion responded by kissing him on the mouth.

He pulled Dandelion against him with a bruising grip and, shuddering, revealed yet another two truths: one between them, against the front of the poet’s trousers, and one against Dandelion’s mouth, where it felt to Geralt that it was most important to reveal it.

Dandelion, realizing what had just transpired, quickly followed suit.

“Don’t be indecorous,” he muttered against Geralt’s mouth, once the Witcher had stopped idly rubbing his back and had begun his attempt to shove Dandelion’s trousers down. 

“I’m trying to help.”

“This isn’t helping.”

“It‘s helping me.”

It was difficult to tell whether he wanted to accept Geralt’s aid, or whether he simply didn’t have the ambition to fight back. Indeed, it did help to not have the fabric of Dandelion’s trousers rubbing against bare skin any longer. And if Dandelion had any words of protest, he kindly kept them to himself, and instead sighed at the weight of Geralt’s hand on his bare backside.

“How much of this,” Geralt asked after a silent moment’s rest, “do you plan to report in your findings?”

Dandelion, who appeared to be on the verge of dozing off atop Geralt’s chest, hummed dreamily. “All of it, my dear subject.”

“Are you including a model for comparison?”

“And who in the world do you think could compare?” 

Geralt gazed down at Dandelion, who had only managed to open one half-focused eye and who now grinned up at him with unabashed fondness, and knew then that Dandelion, having finished prying certain truths from him, had finally begun to reveal some of his own.

VIII

_Love is like water; attempt to contain it in your hands, and invariably it shall overflow, discover the cracks and seep through the fingers, and leave one cleansed and covered in it. Consume it, and it shall nourish you in all ways._

— Dandelion, _Half a Century of Poetry_

“Hey, doesn’t this belong to Dandelion?” 

Angoulême lifted the sealed tube with an expression that suggested she had expected it to be heavier. Curiosity sparkled in her eyes, a brightness made all the wilder by the campfire which they were still gathered around, and she inspected each end of it, along with the leather strap that typically affixed it to Dandelion’s person.

“It does,” Geralt said without looking up from the stick that he had begun carving. “It contains his memoirs.” 

“Huh. Memoirs, you say! Well, let’s take a look, then.”

“I would caution you against opening that tube, dear child. There are precious manuscripts held within that container, and it would be a great shame to disturb them.” 

Angoulême paused with her fingernails jammed beneath the tube’s lid and stared wide-eyed at Regis, who smiled in that clever way that he often did, which is to say that he smiled in a manner which suggested he was well aware of certain consequences which would arise that no-one else had yet caught on to. “Oh yeah? Manuscripts, you say? What’s he got in here, some sultry letters from some fancy lady?”

“It’s as Geralt said,” Cahir said softly from the opposite side of the fire. “Among the contents of that tube are Dandelion’s memoirs. He’s been writing about our journey. Recording everything and anything. You should put it down before he comes back.”

Angoulême blinked at him next, but he had already returned to quietly brushing bits of dirt and gravel from the scrapes he had acquired in his earlier scuffle with Geralt, and was currently using the chilled water in his flask to soothe the burn of the welts on his forearms.

“What’re you all on about?” The girl asked suddenly, brandishing the tube at the particularly small hanza huddled around the fire. “You’re all acting like he’s got gold and jewels in here. Like it’s full of… of… shit, what are you laughing at, anyway?”

“I’m not laughing at all,” said Milva, who wore a small and tired smile. She scratched at the back of her head and ran her fingers through her hair, and nearly managed to hide the way her fingers continued moving, as if expecting to find the rest of her plait still there. “I’m smiling at these blockheads, who all wanted to know so much about what that idiot was writing before and now seem to want nothing to do with any of it.”

Angoulême considered that for a moment, then popped the tube open and held the open end toward Milva. “Care to read with me? I’m sure there’s something juicy in here about each of you.”

Cahir cleared his throat. Regis tilted his chin up and regarded her with a wary gaze. Geralt accidentally snapped the stick’s tip with his knife and hummed, disappointed. The leaves overhead rustled ominously with the wind, carrying the faint scent of sulphur from the fireworks through the campsite like an ill omen.

“No,” Milva said after a few seconds. “No, I don’t care to. And anyway, even if I wanted to, I already know what’s in there and I would rather prefer not to go snooping through someone’s personal belongings, even if he does tell us all about it. Even if it is Dandelion’s.”

Angoulême slid a rolled-up sheet of paper out of the tube, unrolled it, and tilted it toward the fire to see better. She mouthed a few words under her breath that Geralt did not listen to as she read, and then began to read in silence while her cheeks took on a red glow unrelated to the fire... and then she slid the paper back into the tube without another word.

The bushes rustled ominously once more. This time, the omen heralded was Dandelion’s return from the woods.

“Sorry to disappear for so long. To be frank, and forgive me for saying so, the thought of going anywhere near Toussaint still makes my insides—oh, er, I see you’ve found my…”

“You forgot this,” Angoulême said in a sudden and uncharacteristically subdued voice. She held out the tube, and Dandelion took it in both hands with the same mix of caution and terror with which a recent father might receive and cradle a newborn infant. “Wanted to make sure it didn’t get lost on you.”

“Well,” said Dandelion, who—based on the suspicious look he cast at Geralt and the rest—still seemed baffled as to the general atmosphere that he had returned to, “that’s quite kind of you, Angoulême. Thank you very much. I find it reassuring that at least one among us has some respect for my work. I’ll be sure to make a special note of your noble deed when my manuscript has been published.”

The poet sat next to Geralt by the fire, placed the tube between his crossed legs, and, drawing his cloak around his body, gave a dramatic shiver in the wind. “Hmph. Lively crew you all are. I’m seeing very few horses and a lot of long, horse-like faces. Would a song cheer you up? What do you think, O Great Ringleader?”

Geralt tossed the remains of his stick into the fire. “I think a song would be nice,” he said, and carefully did not make eye contact with either Regis, Milva, Cahir, or Angoulême, for he knew that what was written in Dandelion’s manuscripts was written across his face, too, and that each of them had already read it, clear as day.

He welcomed the distraction of the song. And, later in the evening when the fire had burned low and the silence of slumber had settled over the camp, Geralt held up the corner of a blanket and welcomed Dandelion, who continued his newfound tradition of burrowing close to Geralt so as to protect himself from the fall chill and the unrelenting winds.

“I don’t like this,” the poet said against the thick fabric covering Geralt’s chest. “Not the wind, not the weather, not this blasted cold. And I especially dislike the direction in which we’re heading. I don’t want to go to Toussaint, Geralt.”

Geralt disliked it as well. Not the idea of Toussaint—he disliked the ill omens that hung around them like stars suspended in the air; he disliked the swiftly approaching onset of winter, the knowledge that they were likely being watched, and the growing sense of foreboding that had not eased in the past weeks.

He tucked the blanket beneath Dandelion’s side and buried his nose in the poet’s hair, inhaling woodsmoke and the faint medicinal scent of herbal ointment that clung to him, a lasting olfactory reminder of his wound courtesy of Regis’s arsenal of medical supplies. “We may have no choice,” the Witcher murmured. “What is it about Toussaint that worries you, anyway? The prospect of sleeping in a real bed? The vineyards?”

Dandelion hummed dismissively, and Geralt thought he felt the poet’s nose nudge against his chest. “Rather not talk about it. As a matter of fact, I’d prefer any sort of distraction right about now.”

“Including the academic kind?”

Dandelion chuckled and lifted his head, eyes narrowed mischievously. Geralt gazed at him for a long moment, thinking of the way Dandelion had touched and kissed and moved against him that night in the inn. There had been a tenderness that Geralt had, in the confusion since leaving the Slopes, not had time to reflect upon; so he did so now, and did so by pressing his mouth against Dandelion’s, softly at first, as if asking permission.

Dandelion gripped him and made a sound of immense satisfaction, and they distracted one another effectively that way, until they were too exhausted to continue.

IX

_There is no metaphor in my repertoire capable of indicating how difficult and rare it is for a Witcher to express feelings of love._

_There is thus no word that can convey the great difficulty and tragedy of breaking one’s heart._

— Dandelion, _Monstrum Volume III, or The Definitive Compendium of Witcher Physiologia_

_“Why, it is my opinion that Viscount Julian and Sir Geralt of Rivia are as perfectly suited to one another as rosemary is to thyme. Or as pepper is to salt, if you like. I’ve not seen one without the other in the time that I’ve traveled with them. In fact, it would surprise me greatly if a rift were to form between the pair… ah, yes, I quite agree with you. As unlikely as beef soup made from chicken broth.”_

— a conversation overheard in the kitchen at Beauclair Palace between a count and a cook

“I feel bad for you, Geralt, I truly do.”

Geralt, who felt he deserved sympathy as much as he deserved a toothache, turned in place, holding his sword aloft as the door closed quietly behind the robed figure of Dandelion. “And to what do I owe your sympathy?”

“Forgive my astute observations,” the poet said, gently pushing aside the tip of Geralt’s sword with a finger against the flat of the blade, “but you must be terribly bored if you’ve taken to training down here. What’s next, will I find you carving up a ham in the kitchen?”

He grinned, and Geralt used the sword to gently nudge aside the mink fur of Dandelion’s robe. The poet was bare-chested beneath it, and looked as warm and satisfied he’d just stepped out of either a warm bath or a warm bed. He waited for Geralt to finish his inspection, then coyly pulled the fur back into place.

“Well, don’t just stand there ogling. Out with it. You’ve piqued my curiosity. Are you hiding from someone? Waiting for a giant rat to sneak into the castle and offer to keep your skills sharp? Has someone banished you without my knowledge? Was it the cook?”

“Perhaps I’m hiding from ostentatious poets who prefer to strut about the castle looking, ah…”

Dandelion puffed up with pride under his gaze. “Aristocratic? Opulent?”

“Debauched.”

“Ha! Well, keep fantasizing, fellow. Anyway, I’ve no interest in hearing you wax poetic about me, least of all in such an environment as unromantic as this. I’m here for business, so listen up.” His face grew solemn, and he stepped closer, glancing around as though doubting their privacy. “You’ve no doubt heard that this castle is… haunted, yes?”

“I’ve heard of certain hauntings. Let me guess: the hauntings occur only at night, primarily happen only to men, and are not regarded as being unfavourable in the least.”

Dandelion chuckled. “Yeah, those hauntings precisely. I thought, since you’ve not slain anything at all in nearly two weeks and I know that you’re prone to bouts of melancholy in the absence of money and monsters, so I thought I might hire you.”

Geralt placed his table on the sword, folded his arms over his chest, and smiled. “You’re hiring me to stop the hauntings?”

“I’m paying you a handsome sum to let the hauntings continue.”

“You and about six other men,” Geralt said. “Alright, then, viscount: if I am interested in your contract, how much are you willing to pay me, and precisely whose money will you be paying me with?” 

Dandelion gave him a look which suggested that the answer either was very obvious, or else did not matter at all.

“Geralt, my dear, it’s the last thing in the world that you should concern yourself with. All that matters is that you have an important job to do”—he winked here—“and that you will receive a special bonus for accomplishing your task in a timely manner.”

“How can I be timely about not killing?”

“Well, it seems that you’re doing an excellent job of it right now, though I may change my opinion if I happen to detect a hint of rat in my breakfast. Consider this a success, Geralt.”

Geralt gazed at him for a long moment. He drew closer, and leaned in closer, inhaling the faint scent of perfume. He felt Dandelion exhale as he pressed a kiss against his temple, where the wounded flesh had healed rather nicely and left the troubadour with a truly impressive war wound. “Then I accept your contract.”

Dandelion hummed long and low, acknowledging both Geralt’s word and the hand that now rested low in the curve of his back. Geralt pressed his lips against the side of his neck, but Dandelion offered no complaint even when Geralt slid a hand beneath the mink coat and nudged it from one shoulder.

It had been two weeks, or thereabouts, since the Slopes.

They had not shared a bed since. Nor a bedroll, for that matter. For good reasons, of course; reasons that had to do with timing, and privacy, and so on. Geralt found that he had begun to miss it all the same.

“Geralt…”

“Would you like me to look you in the eye again?” Geralt asked, lifting his mouth from the warm side of Dandelion’s throat. “For your research?”

His fingers drew a shiver as they skimmed Dandelion’s chest. It was not hard to discover what he liked best; over two decades of idle chatter about other people and what they had done to satisfy him had taught Geralt precisely what to do and how best to do it. He suckled gently and felt Dandelion’s pulse jump beneath his tongue; his fingers, rougher than any working girl or duchess Dandelion would have encountered, traced feather-light along the shape of his ribs.

Dandelion moaned softly. It was nice to hear it from him first, this time.

Geralt, acting decisively, hoisted the poet suddenly and deposited him atop the table next to his sword.

The fur slid off easily.

Geralt kissed him softly. It felt dissimilar to their kiss in the Slopes—less urgent, less desperate, less like leaping over a cliff and going into a free fall. Dandelion responded by sliding his fingers through Geralt’s hair, and seemed more or less receptive to him, and so it filled him with an electric thrill all the same.

And he touched. Touched the way he hadn’t been able to with Dandelion fully clothed, the way he had only heard of others touching him. He explored gently, patiently, discovering the spaces between his ribs, the coarse hair of his chest, the sensitive flesh of his nipples. He explored first with his hands, then with his mouth, until Dandelion was squirming in his pool of fur and breathless when Geralt finally took him in hand.

Geralt kissed him again, simply to taste the noise he made. And he made noise the likes of which Geralt had mostly heard from behind walls—shameless, enthusiastic, and poetic. And Geralt gathered it all on his tongue and swallowed it, and then sank to the floor and took something else upon his tongue.

When at last Dandelion was trying to catch his breath, Geralt leaned aside and spat inconspicuously beneath the table, then rose to his feet. Dandelion did not reach for him like a drowning man; instead, he all but melted in Geralt’s arms, returning his kisses languidly and with an air of immense satisfaction.

“Oh,” he murmured, dragging his fingers slowly through Geralt’s hair, “oh, goodness. And you suggested _I_ looked debauched.”

Geralt, nuzzling against his cheek, hummed contentedly. “You do.”

_I’ve wanted to touch you like this for so long,_ he thought.

Dandelion pressed a hand against his cheek, studied him briefly with eyes not yet fully clear, and smiled warmly. “Well, you’re to thank for that. But I’m afraid my leg has gone numb from sitting here. Would you mind…? Thank you.”

Geralt allowed him to slip back onto the floor and readjust his fur coat. Indeed, he looked more relaxed and warm than he had upon first finding Geralt. A pleasant glow surrounded him, making him all the more attractive to Geralt, who took great pride in causing such effects.

“May I ask you a personal question, Dandelion?”

“I have a feeling you will whether I agree to it or not.”

“Your manuscript. The section you’re writing about me. I’d like to read it.”

Dandelion laughed and glanced at Geralt, rubbing his fingers over his chin. “Oh, most certainly you can read it. Once it’s published.”

“I’d like to read it now. I think, being the primary subject about which you have written, I should have a right to know what is being written about me before certain information is widely distributed and shared among mages and academics who will most certainly not use such knowledge to their advantage.”

The poet blanched, then recovered. “Now? I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. Firstly, it would spoil the surprise. Secondly, what makes you think I’ve written only about you?”

“Firstly, because you don’t know any other Witchers. Secondly, I don’t want there to be any surprises,” Geralt said firmly. “I want to know what you’ve been writing. I could care less for your manuscripts, your memoirs, whatever else you’ve been scribbling. But anything you’ve written about me…”

“I can recite it to you,” Dandelion offered. “What would you like for me to tell you about first? A section on overbearing and nosy Witchers? Ones who look to put their hand in the oven before the bread has finished baking?”

Geralt grimaced. “Is this bread going to contain any… harmful or greatly exaggerated ingredients?”

Dandelion gazed at him for a moment, then softened at last. “No, Geralt, it is going to contain the truth. No exaggerations. No falsehoods. Just simple facts, as long as you trust me to repeat them.”

“I would very much like to do that,” Geralt said. Dandelion gave him a gentle smile, a small and private and warm one, and Geralt found himself compelled to lean in and leave a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth.

He was also compelled to kiss the poet’s mouth directly after, although he was not motivated by the same factors.

Dandelion smiled beneath his lips, and that smile grew as Geralt reached for the sash that held his robe about his waist. “Ah-ah. What are you doing now?”

“Trusting you to tell me the facts. I thought we might exchange some now.”

“Oh,” he said softly, but Geralt noticed immediately the way the poet stiffened and hesitated, rather than drawing nearer and softening his lips and tongue. “Geralt…”

Geralt pressed another kiss to the corner of his mouth, then his jaw. “Would you prefer without…?”

“No, no, that isn’t—that’s not what I’m trying to say,” Dandelion said, gently removing the hand that Geralt had attempted to sneak beneath his shirt. “Please, if you can’t behave yourself, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to ask you to leave.”

“I thought this was the purpose of closed doors.”

“Yes, in a different time, under different circumstances, perhaps it would be. But Geralt, I have all that I need,” the poet said, resting his hand against Geralt’s chest. “You’ve been an excellent subject for me, please believe me when I say this.”

“An excellent subject,” Geralt said, narrowing his eyes. “Can I believe my ears? Is that all I’ve been to you these past weeks? A subject for your studies, nothing more?”

“Oh, of course not.” Dandelion took Geralt’s face in both hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Oh, my dear, you are one of my oldest and truest friends, and I feel a great love and adoration for you on occasion, but please”—he gazed deeply into the Witcher’s eyes—“I must ask that you do not take this personally, Geralt. And don’t be purposefully obtuse about it. This has been a truly excellent learning experience for me and I greatly cherish what you’ve allowed me to document during this tumultuous time. Please stop making that face at me, I can only lavish so many platitudes upon you before they become insincere.”

Geralt clenched his jaw. “I wouldn’t want to force you to treat me insincerely.”

“That’s the spirit.” Dandelion pulled his robe tighter and cleared his throat. “Now, I understand that you have an important task to see to, and I can tell by your expression that you’re not entirely satisfied with me at present, so I believe it would be best if you—”

“If I?” Geralt narrowed his eyes. “You think I should take some action? Some responsibility? If you’re uncomfortable around me, then say so. If you’re comfortable with me, then say so. You peacock around this castle and around the duchess, you slink about the castle smelling of her perfume and clothed in her luxurious gifts, proclaiming love and adoration for all to hear, and you’ve hardly looked me in the eye since we parted ways and reunited here. Are you afraid someone will discover what we did in the Slopes? Or what we’re doing here?”

“Geralt, please, this isn’t the time or place for—”

“Isn’t it? It’s not the time or place for a private discussion, in a private room at such a late hour? If it isn’t the time now, when or where will the appropriate time be? Tell me, Dandelion, since you’re so talented at knowing what is appropriate and when: is it better to lie and deceive early on, such as pretending to have some fondness for or interest in someone in order to see him unclothed and unguarded? Or is it better to lie later, when one has already revealed his motivations unintentionally and wishes to cover his tracks and provide some alternate explanation for his behaviour?”

“I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“Then I won’t imply it,” Geralt said. “Quite simply, I cannot understand why you won’t admit to yourself that you have some sexual and romantic interest in me. Or why you won’t allow me to reciprocate freely.”

Quite disappointingly, the look of shock and bafflement that crossed Dandelion’s face was the most genuine thing he had said since arriving at Toussaint. Dandelion was a decent bluff at times, but it seemed in that moment as if the colour had drained from his face. And that single stinging expression spoke volumes—more than if he’d barked a laugh in Geralt’s face, in fact. It was as if he felt sorry for Geralt.

“I… you think that I…? Wait, wait a minute. Geralt.”

Geralt let the door swing shut behind him, and he heard it open once more after a brief pause during which Dandelion continued to speak through the wood… but he was too far away already for Dandelion to reach without jogging to catch up, and Dandelion was at least reliable enough to stand in the doorway calling after him, rather than making a spectacle of himself in his furs. 

If he looked sorry at all, Geralt did not see. Or care.

“I have lived and seen many things, but I admit that I have never seen a Witcher at such a lively event looking as though he wished for the grave instead.”

“Save your observations, please, Regis,” Geralt muttered. “I’m not in the mood for it, I’m afraid.”

Emiel Regis continued to observe him, albeit with somewhat more concern than usual. He leaned against the stone wall and clasped his hands together, then turned to face the same spectacle that Geralt had been forced by common courtesy to attend; it was a reception of sorts, for some baron who had made his way to Toussaint and now, like them, was planning to winter in the duchy. He was red-faced from the wind, and was currently being received by the most important residents of the castle: the Duchess Anna Henrietta, the mage Fringilla Vigo, and the Viscount de Lettenhove, who of course needed no further introduction. Each had a comfortable chair of his or her own, and sat upon a raised dais in the chamber.

“Perhaps not, but while we wait, I hope that you’ll humour me. I haven’t heard you speak of our friend lately. Kindly, ill, or otherwise.”

Geralt gave him a stony gaze, then returned to gazing stonily at the stone that made up the farthest wall.

“That’s because I haven’t spoken to our friend lately.”

The vampire made a face that, despite his words, did not suggest surprise at all. “This Beauclair is a fine castle, but its walls can only allow you to travel so far. And unfortunately, being a closed castle in the early winter season, it allows word to travel further.”

“Mm.”

“I won’t pry,” Regis said.

Dandelion laughed loudly, now in the process of greeting the Baron like an old friend with a great hug and a clap on the back; his voice echoed through the room and made Geralt feel as though he could spit poison.

“A debt repaid,” he said at last, keeping his voice low. “You once suggested that I was wrong to consider it that way, but it seems that in the end, that’s all it was. Simply a transaction. He wanted information, and paid for it with a convenient currency. Now we’re within safe borders, and the currency has no value to either of us. He has all that he wanted after all.” 

Regis took a moment to digest. “Well, that does surprise me.”

“It surprises me too,” Geralt said. “I thought…”

“I know what you thought,” Regis said gently, and for once, Geralt was thankful that he didn’t have to finish his sentence. “Don’t feel bad, Geralt. I thought the same. You remember what we spoke about?”

“I remember you letting me handle the majority of the speaking after sharing your ancient wisdoms. All of which turned out to be horseshit.”

“I still believe it to be true. Yes, our friend may at first appear to be an open book, if you’ll forgive my metaphor, but if you open a book and see text upon both pages, it would suggest to me that more text should be found within.”

“If I see two pages and they’re both about shoving one’s head up one’s… backside… it stands to reason that the rest of the book shall continue in that manner, and that the title will be about Heads and Backsides, and that the author is an expert in the field, as well.”

“To that I would say that you mustn’t have read many books.”

“You would be wrong.”

“Precisely. I know what Witchers know. You’ve read many books over the course of your journeys, and I know you’ve lived long enough to have experienced some… similar literary disappointments over the years.”

“Nearly twenty years, I’ve read this one,” Geralt murmured. “And still, despite my lack of emotional capacity, I have tried thoroughly investigating the table of contents, checked the margins, and read the afterword, and discovered it still isn’t what I believed it to be.” 

Regis nodded. “You thought you had picked a dandelion, and instead you’ve plucked a rose.”

“Or a viscount,” Geralt said, having grown tired of the metaphors. “It may be easy for you, having known him for only a few months. To me he was always a… well, a dandelion.”

“And he still is. He is Dandelion and a viscount both, whether he has a lute on his back, a pen in his hand… or a Witcher by his side. He is Dandelion just as you are Geralt of Rivia as well as a father, a friend...”

“I’m hardly a Witcher anymore. I’m even being hired to keep things alive.”

“You’re as much a Witcher as he is a wordsmith,” Regis said patiently. “As much a Witcher as I am a vampire, I would say.”

“Some vampire you are,” Geralt said sullenly. “I daresay the great viscount himself is rather like a vampire. Entrancing, yes. Seemingly indestructible. Yet rather than puncture flesh and consume one’s blood, he shows his fangs and drains one’s morale, instead.”

“No offence taken, as I understand completely your position and current mental state,” Regis said kindly. “But I think you are discrediting your own charms and attributes. I believe he has, like all of us, taken some precautions to protect himself against heartbreaks and other such disappointments. Exactly how many secret passages do you believe this great castle conceals, Geralt?”

The Witcher snorted. “Comparing Dandelion to a castle is like comparing a...”

“Dandelion to a castle?”

“Even you may have some difficulty figuring out that one.”

Regis thought for a moment. “I shall need to consider that,” he conceded, “but I will let you know when I’ve made a breakthrough. In any case, you have my sympathy. Heartbreak is, in my experience, like a terrible hangover: unpleasant no matter the circumstance and difficult to forget about. But it can be eased with time and a few aids.”

“If this were a heartbreak or a hangover, I would appreciate the sentiment,” Geralt muttered. “However, I fear it’s only a minor headache. Nothing more.”

“Of course it is. You love him, anyone can see that. And despite his unorthodox manner of reciprocating, he clearly loves you as well.”

“Clearly.”

Regis was quiet for some time. “Well, all breaks inevitably heal, and all aches grow dull and ease in the end. If you’d like, I would gladly offer my services to aid.”

“Regis… don’t take this as an insult, but I would rather never speak with him again than to speak with him while under your influence.”

“I understand.” The vampire rested his hand atop Geralt’s shoulder in an oddly paternal manner. “I hope the headache passes quickly.”

“Thank you, Count Regis.”

The morning after found Geralt in a better mood, as was quickly becoming the case now that he had begun to take his breakfast, and a hearty one at that, in the palace kitchen. He was joined by Milva and Angoulême this morning, both of whom he hardly recognized nowadays owing to their dress, their still-healing and already-healed wounds, and their general cleanliness, and whom he most certainly could not mistake owing to their appetites and notably unducal language.

“How charming it is that we have traveled so far and have found ourselves here, breaking our fast together like old friends,” said Regis, who seemed to have simply begun existing in the space over Geralt’s shoulder. He leaned in, interrupting the scent of roasting sausage and burning fat with a cornucopia of his own herbal scents. “Ah! Mushrooms.”

“Some might call it stifling, having the same people around all of the time,” Geralt said, sliding a savoury-looking dish of buttered mushrooms toward the seat that Regis now occupied. Angoulême made a face—whether at the vegetable or the words, Geralt could not tell—and waggled the sausage she held between her thumb and forefinger in an accusatory manner. 

“You really thought you’d get rid of us,” she began with narrowed eyes, “after all we’ve been through, the six of us?”

“Maybe he thought we’d part ways and never speak to him again,” Milva suggested. “Thought we’d make like hens and scatter to gobble down some grain on our own.”

“Well, our six has become four, leaving some space for breathing. And hens are quite social, or so I’ve been led to believe.”

“Roosters are solitary creatures,” Regis offered.

“Precisely. And it goes without saying that some members of our party have had similar genius ideas about becoming solitary, which suggests that there may be a cock or two among us.”

“And who else would know a single cock when he sees one, but our resident lone wolf?” asked Cahir, who now sat on the other side of Milva.

Geralt scowled and promptly relieved the roasted partridge before him of its leg.

Cahir, luckily, seemed not to take offence. He smiled and settled into his chair, having not noticed the atmosphere. Or perhaps was simply ignoring it. “Good morning to you too.”

“And a good morning it is,” Regis said kindly.

Angoulême finished the remains of her sausage and tore a hunk of bread with her teeth. “Don’t worry about that sour puss. He’s been making faces at us all morning. I think it’s because we’re only five. We could use a good story or song to really wake us up, you know.”

“I’d rather break fast with the rooster,” Milva said, then promptly flushed and stared into a bowl of porridge that the royal chef had kindly garnished with baked apples and cinnamon. “Anyway, where is that blockhead? Geralt, surely you’ve seen him prancing about.”

“Why should I know his whereabouts?”

Cahir gently removed the partridge’s other leg. “I think it’s obvious. Weren’t the two of you…?”

“Ah!” said a voice that also materialized from nowhere. “There you are, you scamps. Hale and healthy-looking, I’m glad to see. Oh, what a devilishly tempting thing, dining in the kitchen. One feels his belt tighten with every breath in this room.”

A wave of fresh irritation washed over Geralt, who was failing to refrain from taking his frustration out on the bird’s bone. There was a metallic jingle behind Geralt, and suddenly a thunk on the table as a bag of coin hit the wood and sent a ripple through the wine in Geralt’s glass.

“What is this?”

“Your payment,” Dandelion said. “For the contract. As promised. Yours to do with as you please.”

Geralt turned in his seat to glare at the poet, who had wisely dressed up this morning; his doublet was a rich plum, his hair immaculate—

his cheeks flushed pink, eyes glossy and shining in the dark, fixed on Geralt’s mouth

—and suddenly the sight of him made Geralt’s hand tremble.

The Witcher lifted the bag of coin and tossed it expertly in the direction of the royal chef, who jumped as the bag clattered and jingled and skidded across the table. 

“For breakfast,” Geralt explained as the chef raised bewildered eyes to him. “To do with as you please.”

Dandelion gave a stony smile.

“Right,” he said, dusting his hands on his trousers. He’d been caught off guard, and disguised it badly. “Of course. Well, enjoy your meal, gentlemen and gentleladies. I believe I’m required elsewhere.”

He departed. Geralt didn’t turn to watch him leave. He reached for the partridge again instead.

“You were saying, Cahir.”

“Yes,” Cahir said, coughing slightly. “I was saying how… excellent this feast is. Today and every other day.”

“You can say that again,” announced Angoulême, who had never had any problems with changing the subject. “Anyway, how’s about that weather?”

X

_“The easiest way to please a Witcher? Why, the way any man would wish to be pleased. You can ply him with trinkets or money or compliments. But you should love him all the same. God knows a creature like that could use it.”_

— overheard at a dinner party at Beauclair Palace; source unknown

“I think at last I understand,” announced Reynart de Bois-Fresnes after careful consideration, and a great deal of meaningful and silent scrutinising from across the table. “I believe I understand, Sir Geralt, that the unexplained change in your demeanour has some explanation after all.”

“Humour me with your speculation,” said Geralt (who had not yet found a way to stop any such speculating to date) with great boredom. “Explain to me the unexplainable.” 

“You remember, yes, how quickly improved your mood was after October, after the gates to Beauclair had been opened to you and all by Duchess Anarietta. For about a couple of weeks, I think, you had even smiled, and suddenly as if caught in a great storm you had become rather stormy yourself. Why, the clouds themselves could hardly have evoked a greater sense of dreariness and melancholy. Then you smiled again, becoming more cheerful and, on the whole, pleasant to be around, what with the arrival of some coin in your bank account and the occasional distraction of your usual job. And have continued as the weather, sunny and storming by turns, for nearly two months now.”

“And you understand that there is a reason for it.”

“Verily, I do.” Reynart de Bois-Fresnes continued to scrutinise, then cleared his throat. “I have noticed a pattern, one which involves certain public events and appearances of certain public persons, and one in which you become withdrawn and sullen for days after and regain your cheer only when blood has been spilt, coin has been spent, or some combination of both. I respect you too greatly to speculate behind your back, or even to your face, Witcher. But I can see when a man is tormented, and I can detect in you the sorrow of a lover scorned. And…” The knight glanced back and forth and then behind him for good measure, then leaned in close and lowered his voice. “I must ask, Geralt. Out of concern for you.”

“Well, if you must.”

“Why not take solace in the company of another? There is not a woman in all of Toussaint—hm, perhaps some, but I digress—that would refuse you. Nor, if you wished…” He tilted his head and did something with his eyebrows, in order to keep certain things unsaid. “But Yule is upon us, and what good is a merry holiday without some merriment? The snows have obscured the mountain passes. You could try to leave, but it is like that you wouldn’t be seen again until the spring thaw. You could spend your winter warm and comfortable and happy, Geralt. In the castle, not here in The Pheasantry with… well, good company, I should say, but not the company you would prefer.”

Geralt pressed his lips together and was silent for several seconds. “I appreciate your concern, Reynart. Frankly, I disagree with you, not about the snow or the holidays but about my state of being. However, I respect you too greatly to argue. I respect you for not speculating, you understand.”

“I understand well,” Reynart said. He leaned back in his seat. “Then I hope that I am wrong, and that your demeanour is simply full of intentional misdirections, or else is too complex for a humble knight to make sense of. I would like to consider you a pragmatic and proactive fellow, Geralt, and would not like to see anyone moping about Beauclair, which it seems becomes as perfect as a fairytale this time of year, when magical things—indeed, sometimes miracles—seem to happen more frequently and rarely to the misfortune of those involved. Take the mistletoe.” The knight smiled as though remembering a distant dream. “I hear that it blooms in even the darkest of corners.”

“That sounds suspiciously like a threat.”

“Perhaps, my friend. Perhaps.”

“Geralt! Regis! Hey! Slow down, if you please!”

Geralt and Regis, exchanging mirrored expressions with raised brows, turned in unison to see Dandelion walking swiftly toward them. He was pink-faced and out of breath, which suggested that he might have been the source of the strange, rapid shuffling that Geralt had heard far off in the castle. He and Regis had simply attributed it to the rushed and incognito ambulations of Yuletide paramours in the late hour, but had not speculated further.

“I have been occupied this evening playing the part of a courier… no, not a courier, for couriers are granted certain privileges in return, and I am simply aiming to display a certain… ah, damnit. I’m giving you all gifts,” he said in a huff. “And before you try to talk me out of it as Cahir and Milva did, I must warn you that I will not accept a refusal.”

Geralt folded his arms over his chest. “Why, were your gifts offensive?”

“I should hope not,” Dandelion said indignantly. “For Milva, it was a set of finely-fletched arrows and new arrowheads. For Cahir, a token from far off, from his homeland. Something that it was rather difficult to obtain, I might add, but I am fortunate enough to have some favour with Miss Vigo and she has some favour with another contact… anyway,” he said, and began to rummage in his pocket.

“Well, I can understand why they might refuse at first,” Regis said. “And Angoulême, she did not try to dissuade your gift-giving?”

“Once she saw the dagger I had purchased, she all but removed my fingers trying to get it. Aha! Regis. Are you aware that in Vicovaro, yes, that strange Nilfgaardian duchy from whence our friendly Vicovarian hails, mandrake is a popular cultivated specimen?”

“I believe our friend mentioned it to me,” Regis said, still making a curious expression. Dandelion procured a vial; inside, a small, dark piece of what appeared to be a root rattled about. Regis must have recognized it instantly, for he smiled, showing his teeth, and took it between his fingers.

“Ah, this does evoke a certain fondness for times past… I’m afraid I have no such gift to give you in return, Viscount.”

Dandelion waved a hand. “Speak of it no more, good man. The contract of a Yule gift is binding, yes, only in that once a gift has been given, one must be received. I,” he said, gesturing between them, “have given a gift, and you have received it. No need for reciprocation. It is my intent to give selflessly that is the most important, I should think, and I hope that this will be enough to keep your spirits raised until the spring.”

It was by will alone that Geralt did not roll his eyes. That, and he could see that Regis was attempting not to make more frightening expressions with his teeth showing. “Then thank you, Dandelion. Thank you once more for this lovely gift of mandrake.”

“Oh, the mandrake isn’t a gift. The mandrake is a request from me. The alembic, along with the distillation equipment, all of which I have been assured should be sufficient enough to allow you to experiment at length with any herbs you please, is your gift. Also thanks to Fringilla, and a local herbalist, alchemist, a different alchemist, and a metallurgist.”

Regis’s eyes all but sparkled. He gave a gentle, respectful bow, then rattled his mandrake root. “Then I will try to utilize my gift to the best of my abilities.”

Geralt did not smile. It had been no more than a handful of hours since he had last seen Dandelion—at the Yule feast, poised like a peacock at Anarietta’s side—and he was simultaneously pleased and embittered to hear of Dandelion’s supposed selflessness. He did not doubt that this was meant to be an apology to their friends for ignoring them so much of the time, or for his coquettish and foolish behaviour, or for what he was still secretly writing about in his memoirs.

But Dandelion had done one thing correctly. Two, in fact: one was catching Geralt unawares, so that he would not have time to formulate an excuse or write a speech politely declining the poet’s gift to him; and one was catching Geralt with someone who would be kind if Geralt did not wish to be, and in front of whom Geralt would perhaps be less unkind anyway, if only out of courtesy.

“And as for you, Geralt… you look excellent, by the way. I noticed a lovely colour in your pale cheeks this evening, and a moderate consumption of wine with supper. I understand you’re not wanting for dress, drink, or company, and I thought to myself, what should I get… _could_ I get for someone whose only wants and desires at present are ones that… well, cannot be given as material gifts? At least, not by me. So…” 

The poet held something in his hand, something which jingled gently, metal on metal. But he held it out of sight, and made an apologetic face that was too genuine around the eyes to be exaggerated.

“My gift is a paltry one, I’m afraid. I can’t guarantee it will be of any use, though I have been assured and sincerely hope that it will… or at least that it will bring you some comfort to have. I know that I’ve been…”

Suddenly his brow creased, and Geralt, following his bewildered gaze, realized that Regis had simply disappeared.

“Oh, damnit,” he muttered distractedly, moving his hidden hand back into view. “Well, that’s as convenient as a bee in the chamber pot. Here, you might as well see it. I don’t know if the blasted thing works at all, or even how it works if it does. I thought…”

“A replacement,” Geralt said as Dandelion emptied the contents of his hand—a somewhat simple polished stone-and-silver medallion on a silver chain—into his palm. “For the one I lost. Enchanted and all.”

Geralt gripped it in his hand. It was not made of the same metal that Witcher medallions were forged from, nor would it have had the same enchantments placed upon it even if it happened to be made of the same thing. It did not seem to vibrate at all in reaction to Regis, though that might have been a defect, or it may simply have been proof that Regis had kindly fled and left them to speak.

He was alone with Dandelion either way, and he had not been alone with Dandelion in quite some time.

“My second gift,” the poet said suddenly, growing visibly uncomfortable, “is an apology. A sincere one. One that is long overdue. And I won’t make excuses for myself, nor will I discourage you from giving me a good verbal lashing, but I would request that you walk with me. Just for a minute.”

Geralt held the medallion against his palm and gazed down at it. He wanted very much not to look at Dandelion. He wanted very much to, like Regis, blink out of sight and depart with haste.

And he wanted very much, as he had for nearly two months now, to take Dandelion in his arms, embrace him, kiss him, and love him.

“One stroll is all I ask,” the poet said softly.

Geralt was not strong enough to stroll away.

“I… understand that I have… that when it comes to… agh,” Dandelion said, visibly frustrated, “damnit. Damnit, Geralt, I don’t know what to say. How is it that I don’t know what to say to you, eh? Me of all people. When have I ever…?”

Geralt wished to say something venomous about Dandelion having spent two months with his tongue wagging plenty in the duchess’s royal arse, but thought better of it. Dandelion affected upset on a regular basis. This seemed more or less genuine, unfortunately.

“Normally words have no issue finding you and you have no issue with talking my ear off,” he agreed, then turned his head pointedly, indicating the wound that he himself had suffered shortly before arriving in Toussaint. “But it just so happens I have notably less ear for one to talk to, now, so… you having fewer words might be better for both of us.”

“Thank you,” Dandelion said. “I think.”

They walked in companionable silence. It was not immediately apparent where they were walking, as neither seemed to have any particular path in mind; they walked side-by-side, turning by instinct, past a great library, along quiet corridors where torches flickered gently. The entire palace, and indeed most of the entire duchy of Toussaint, had been decorated for Yuletide—strands of garland lined the hallways and stretched across the high ceilings, meeting in merry bundles where holly and mistletoe and brass bells sat like fat spiders lying in wait, while strands of tinsel shimmered like dangling web waiting to ensnare unsuspecting passersby. 

Impatient as he was for the holiday to pass and winter to become spring, Geralt found a certain warmth lent to the castle by its decor, and despite the hour, merriment hung in the air. Drunken shuffling and celebratory coitus (still merry) could be heard plainly from behind closed doors; blazing fires roared in hearths in each room, and candles and the regular torch sconces added gentle ambiance, with light gleaming off of colourful glass decorations. It was almost enchanting enough to take Geralt’s mind off of all that had transpired, including his silent resentful feud with his walking partner… until he remembered the weight of his new pendant against his palm, then remembered the fate of his previous one, and he could not help but grip it tightly in his hand.

Dandelion, not wholly unaware of Geralt’s melancholy and general state of tension, glanced sideways after pretending to admire a tapestry depicting a great grove of apple trees. “Is it still painful? Your knee, I mean.”

“It has its moments,” Geralt said. “Doesn’t like the cold. Or the damp.”

“Well, your limp has improved, at least.”

“Mm. It’s stronger now that I’ve rested it, but a few mugs of beer or wine don’t have quite the same effect as those techniques you learned from the medical students, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good. You know, I have access to… salves and oils and medicaments for pain. And arthritic aches. And so on.”

“Cures for all ailments?”

“Well,” said Dandelion, turning back with a faint smile as he stepped into what looked like an empty study, “a cure for most of what ails you. There’s only so much that anyone can do for healed wounds, and my techniques can only be so effective.”

“They helped when you applied them.”

“I know,” Dandelion said. His lips pressed together as Geralt closed the door behind them, but didn’t remark on it. “But you don’t need to be kind anymore, especially now that we’re out of earshot, so let’s get it out of the way.”

“Get what out of the way?”

“Go on and let me have it. You’ve given me my minute—far more than, in fact—and I can hear those teeth chattering with the need to flash, so… get on with it. Say it.”

The poet took a seat in a chaise and gestured to one opposite him as he spoke. Geralt sat carefully, and maintained more careful eye contact.

“Say what?”

“You know what,” Dandelion said. “That you’re angrier with me than an overripe grape and just as eager to burst, that’s what.”

“I’m not angry anymore.”

“No, of course you’re not angry, you’re just sad. And I’m fine. I am thriving here and you are wallowing. And it’s my fault, and I don’t deserve my happiness, which is obviously greatly exaggerated to make up for something or other, perhaps some deeply-rooted desire to appear upbeat and on guard at all times.”

“This does sound like something I would say,” Geralt said, watching Dandelion’s finger tap irritably on the arm of the chair.

“And obviously I said some things that were poorly timed, and only did so in an attempt to mask my true intentions and feelings, which were so obvious that it would have been apparent to even a–a freshly-dug turnip that I was lying through my teeth, and pushing you away so that I could be selfish and not have to deal with the consequences of my actions.”

“Obviously,” Geralt said. The poet’s finger tapped harder, as though pressing on an invisible fret. The chair, one that was particularly unlike a string instrument, remained relatively indifferent to the playing.

“And… clearly I must have changed my mind, or had some sudden moment of clarity, because I’ve obviously been leading you in circles around my own private chambers, which I rarely have occasion to use and which have grown cold and lonely in my absence, and have been doing so with obvious intent.”

“You said it, not me.”

Dandelion rested his palm against the chair arm, exasperated. “Give me something to work with, Geralt. Please. You know I could go on all night.”

“I know, and I won’t. I won’t punish you for your choices, even if I think they were the wrong ones. If you want to punish yourself, you can. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not follow you into your chambers.

“But we’ll always be friends, Dandelion,” Geralt added quickly, seeing the put-upon expression the poet had donned. “So why bother now? Wouldn’t you rather skip the bedding and move straight to the forgetting? We can put all of this out of mind now if you like. Attribute the entire conversation to too much mead and mulled wine and cranberry sauce and simply carry on as if nothing ever happened between us.”

Dandelion shook his head silently.

“Then what? Because I don’t see other options. I see that you’re happily in love, singing like a songbird and preening like a peacock, and it’s not over me, Viscount Dandelion. And I’ve accepted that, and so should you. Why shake your head? You would prefer to linger on what happened and what didn’t? No, tell me. Shall I avoid you entirely for the rest of the winter, act as if I’ve never heard of you, play at deafness when your name is mentioned, like a scorned lover? Shall I act as if none of this ever happened and torment myself silently hoping that it will? Would you like me to attend a signing of your great tome when it’s bound and published?”

A nerve had been struck at last. Dandelion pushed himself from his chair and paced for a moment, but not in anger; he loped sadly about the room and exhaled a great sigh before looping his arms around Geralt’s neck from behind.

“I don’t want any of that,” Dandelion whispered into Geralt’s hair. 

“Do you know what you want?”

There was a long pause. Dandelion’s fingers slid over Geralt’s jaw and tipped his head up, and for a brief moment Geralt let himself gaze at the poet, admiring him, remembering the scrape of his stubble and the softness of his mouth and all the places he had wanted it. He wanted to close his eyes and focus on those fingers against his throat, but he knew what Dandelion would see in his eyes, and he wanted it to be seen clearly.

Dandelion saw it, and as he leaned down and pressed his lips against Geralt’s, Geralt allowed himself to see and hear and feel the poet as he had longed to do for nearly two months. He felt the pulse of blood in his fingertips, the soft, satisfied hum in his throat, and the rush of warmth that suffused his skin with a flush of colour. He tasted lingering food and drink and the heat of Dandelion’s breath, felt the texture of his tongue, smelled sweat and the simple, uncomplicated hormonal scent that clung to Dandelion like a shadow. He kissed him slowly, deeply, with all the awkwardness that an upside-down kiss demanded and all of the desire that such a kiss could never impart.

And most importantly, Geralt allowed himself to enjoy it.

He even chose to remain silent about the bundles of mistletoe and bells that hung from the ceiling of the study, obscured by the looming shadow of Dandelion’s head.

“Would you be angry if I asked you to spend tonight with me?” Dandelion asked when they parted.

“No,” Geralt said truthfully.

Dandelion’s fingers found the base of his throat and discovered a path beneath the open collar of his shirt. “Why not?”

“Because I want to,” Geralt said softly. He touched the side of Dandelion’s temple, where his wound had healed and left a minor scar, interrupting the topography of his hairline in a way that felt particularly suitable for the poet. “I want to spend every night with you. That’s what I’ve wanted since we arrived. This isn’t news to you.”

“Then let’s do it,” the poet murmured, rubbing his fingers over the skin where Geralt’s medallion normally lay. “I have some very good ideas about where I’d like to see you, you know. Some truly alluring ideas, in fact, luxurious enough to make even my humble self feel kingly. Plush pillows, a lovely eiderdown, your new amulet around your neck… perhaps _only_ your new amulet...”

His eyes filmed over with the dreamy haze of imagination, and Geralt knew that he had temporarily visited that place in his mind where all things were romantic and sultry and constructed entirely for him. Dandelion visibly shook himself from it after a moment, pressed another gentle kiss to Geralt’s mouth, then began to move around the chair, humming contentedly as though Geralt had already agreed—and then Dandelion stopped, noticing that Geralt had not made any motions to leave, and turned back with a quizzical look as Geralt said at last:

“No.”

Dandelion laughed.

“I’m sorry, my hearing must be compromised as well. It sounded to me as if you said ‘no.’”

“I did say no. And so you don’t mistake it again: no, Dandelion. I’ve accepted your apology and your gift and walked with you as requested, but I won’t warm your bed and satisfy your fantasies, even if I very much wish to. I won’t because although you say with all your scholarly studies that I interest and fascinate you, you still think me incapable of loving you back. You’re afraid that I won’t feel for you the way you feel for me.”

“Well, that’s… that’s not true. You’re capable of love, of course. You love Ciri, and Yennefer, and…” The poet rested his hands on his hips. His face grew stormy. “And me, or so I thought. Has so much really changed since that night in the cellar?”

“I did,” Geralt agreed, ignoring the question. “And I do. But you’re the poet, not me. Tell me, what’s the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone?”

Dandelion huffed a laugh and sauntered closer, dropping back into the chair opposite Geralt. “Oh, I see. You think that my affection for you is somehow diminished because I told you that I wasn’t in love with you, is that it? Or because I didn’t say that I was. Well, you’ll have to try harder than that if you’re trying to convince me that I can’t adore you all the same.”

“Maybe you do adore me. But I still won’t spend the night in bed with you. Not while it’s impossible for me to love you the way I want to.”

Dandelion’s face sank like a boot being sucked into a swamp. “Well,” he said, very obviously taken aback, “er. That’s very noble of you, if a poor interpretation of my character, but I simply won’t accept that. Geralt, do you think I would ever have spent years of my life by your side if I were not at least some _small_ bit in love with you? I know that lovely brain of yours is full of monsters and vengeance and so much else, but you must have realized on some level how much I care for you.”

“I thought that I knew,” Geralt said softly. “I know that you love to travel with or without me… I know that you love adventure, and that you love to see new places and sing new songs and play the dashing hero, and that you love to be kissed and embraced and proclaimed the bravest and most selfless man in the valley. And you have that, all of that, here in a castle that you love, where you sleep next to a woman that you love—”

“Geralt, if this about my relationship with Anna—”

“I know that your memoirs will be revered by historians and academics for decades, possibly centuries,” Geralt continued evenly. “I even have faith that you weren’t lying to me all along and that everything I told you about Witchers, including all of the things you learned with your hands, will provide the most accurate—if unexpectedly detailed—depiction of Witchers that has been published in recent years.

“And I know that while you love someone else, you’ll never be happy with me. Not completely.”

Without saying a word, Dandelion managed to convey with his expression that all Geralt said was true; all that it took was a faint misting of his eyes, and a nervous swallow, and a shaky intake of breath. Geralt should have noticed none of it, but he was tired of waiting for Dandelion to tell him things. He knew how to find the answers he was looking for, and he had made the mistake of ignoring what was in front of him for too long.

“So you’re jealous. That’s what this outburst is about.”

“No, Dandelion, I’m not jealous.”

“Clearly you’ve been thinking about this for some time.”

“I have,” Geralt said, fixing his eyes on the empty chair as Dandelion stood to his feet and began to pace. “For two months, in fact. Since the night in the cellar when you told me that you were in love with someone else, I’ve thought about it.”

“And you’re blaming me for all that time you spent brooding? Rather than telling me about it and resolving the issue? Oh, I can’t imagine that. Not from you. Not Sir Geralt of Rivia preferring to erect impenetrable walls around himself rather than seeking out the comfort of his best friend.” Dandelion turned so abruptly that the carpet beneath his boot shifted on the wooden floor with an angry sound of its own. “Geralt, you…”

The poet made a frustrated noise and sat back in his seat with a severe motion. He glared until Geralt tore his gaze away from the spine of the book he had been idly admiring, then glared some more.

“Here it is,” he said curtly. “Here’s the truth, my friend: I do love you, and I do have some interest in you. Beyond academic interest, let me be clear. And yes, I do indeed feel a romantic interest in Anna Henrietta, who I understand from those rolling eyes you’ve not made any attempt to hide in her presence does not impress you… but I want you to come back. Come back to happiness and comfort, while we’re here and the storm is out there. You can’t leave Toussaint until the snow melts in the pass. You can spend as much time as you want doing your training in the cellar, or draining coin from the ducal coffers and squirrelling it away in your bank account, or… hell, you can fuck the hens in the kitchen before they go on the spit, for all I care. But don’t deprive yourself of this.”

“Of you, you mean. Don’t deprive myself of you.”

“Yeah, Geralt. That’s what I mean.” Dandelion paused and ran his fingers through his hair, then let his arms fall in the universal sign of exhaustion. “Anyway… I think I’ll go to bed, then. You can join me if you’d like. Or if not tonight, then tomorrow. The night after. Next year, if it pleases you. I’ll welcome you any time.”

The poet waited expectantly after the conclusion of his speech, but Geralt, in seeking other directions to look which did not have Dandelion in them, had discovered the worn leather binding of a book that sat on the desk and was too busy regarding it with great interest to pay Dandelion any mind.

“Well… goodnight.”

He waited again, then moved toward the door, and only then did Geralt turn his head in Dandelion’s direction.

“If… Dandelion… I would go… if I opened the door and was surprised to find Her Ladyship the Duchess waiting for me in your bed…”

Dandelion gave a soft, sincere smile.

“She likes you too much to behead you. After all, you’ve done her a great many services, none of which she’ll forget and many of which she did not require before you arrived. Suffice to say… you’re safe because you’re my guest.”

“I’m not worried about being executed for fraternizing with the ducal consort. Only about being...”

“Discreet?”

“Punctual. So as to avoid being caught fraternizing with the ducal consort while he is consorting ducally.”

Dandelion’s brow creased, then relaxed. “Oh, you’re being serious. Well, you needn’t concern yourself with that. Come any time, Geralt. Any time. You’ll only find me.” The poet stepped out into the hallway, leaving the door ajar so that the Witcher could hear the receding sound of his footsteps on the floor.

Geralt gripped the gifted medallion tightly in his hand. He gripped it until it became painful, until his hand and forearm shook with the inability to grip harder. Impressively, the polished chrysoprase out of which the medallion was made did not shatter or crumble, and the silver in which it was mounted did not bend. In fact, Geralt almost swore that it shivered against his palm, warning him of a phantom danger that waited just out of sight.

In a distant part of Beauclair Palace, Dandelion lay gazing at the unmoving door. He watched it until the candles burned low and flickered out, and began to doze in the dark, his hand outstretched beneath his pillow as though waiting for an invisible lover to take it in their own, but it was only when midnight passed and Yuletide Eve became Yuletide Day that the door creaked gently open, allowing Geralt to pass silently through it and rousing Dandelion in the process.

“Geralt,” mumbled the troubadour, blinking and squinting into the dark. There was barely enough light in the room for him to see by, but he watched with rapt attention as Geralt pulled off his shirt, removed his trousers, and left various other undergarments lying on the floor before adding to the weight upon the mattress.

“I thought… oh, it doesn’t matter now. Come here. Ooh, that’s chilly. Does it ever warm up beneath your shirt, or is it always...?”

“You learn to ignore it.”

“Aha,” Dandelion said, and sighed as Geralt pressed him into the bed and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him.

XI

_No matter how much he hurried, urged, fumed and stormed, the Witcher remained in Toussaint almost the whole winter. What were the reasons? I shall not write about them. It is all over. There is no point dwelling on it. Anyone who would condemn the Witcher I would remind that love has many names and not to judge less they themselves are judged._

— Dandelion, _Half a Century of Poetry_

“Tell me you don’t love me.”

Dandelion smiled. His fingertips traced the outline of Geralt’s cheek as though he were a delicate parchment, and Geralt could not help but wonder what verses and stanzas his fingers wrote.

“That’s a strange request, don’t you think?”

“No stranger a request than any you’ve asked of me,” Geralt said. He rested his chin atop Dandelion’s chest and closed his eyes, anticipating the gentle brush of the poet’s fingers over his forehead and through his hair. “Try this first: could you tell me about your fondness for winter storms?”

Dandelion hummed. The sound was not entirely musical, but it vibrated pleasantly beneath Geralt’s sternum and through his lungs, like the distant humming of his new medallion, which lay inert between them, having no magic or monsters to pick up on. “No, I couldn’t. Not while that blasted snow is being buffeted this way and that and piling up outside the windows. Why, it makes a pretty sight, but I’d far prefer to be in here.”

“I expected as much. Could you tell me that you don’t take pleasure in such luxuries as these”—he did not need to indicate the soft, warm bedding in which they had tangled themselves, nor the frosted windows and crackling fire keeping the cold wind at bay—“and that you’d rather spend your days hunting and foraging for food, wearing your hood over your head and playing for pennies in crossroad inns?”

Dandelion scratched a lazy, soothing rhythm against Geralt’s scalp. “I’m not so sure I like what you’re insinuating,” he said after a moment, “but no. I sincerely cannot say that I prefer that all of the time. But listen up, because I know what you’re trying to do: it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t travel with you again in an instant, Geralt. I like all of those things, yes, in–in moderation, let’s say. Just as you do, and don’t pretend that you yourself haven’t gained some winter weight… strictly speaking, in the region of your coin purse, of course.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“I mean you, my dear Witcher, have had the pleasure of being the first cat to discover a barrel full of fish. There is no threat here that you cannot handle, of course, and you can pluck a contract from desperate fingers whenever you wish, and can, being looked upon favourably by many of the occupants of this lovely land, reasonably haggle nearly any price you so choose. Not that I’m judging you. Simply making an observation.”

Geralt opened one eye. He found it difficult to focus on Dandelion’s face, but for different reasons than before; a day’s physical exertion, in addition to a full belly and the warm embers of a recent orgasm, threatened to pull his eyelids down permanently, and he felt at present as if he could simply drift off to sleep and forget all that troubled him. What alarmed him more than that was the simple fact that he had felt this way on several occasions now. On several nights just like this one, with the winter wind howling beyond the windows, the occasional scratch of pencil on paper, the pop and crackle of a warm fire nearby. Not consecutively, but with enough frequency that he now found himself growing comfortable with it. Comfortable with the idea of being content. With not arguing or questioning.

“Would you like for me to make a simple observation?”

“Hm. Sure, why not. If it’s observations and critique you’re offering, I welcome it.”

Geralt smiled. “You never intended to publish your writings about Witchers.”

Dandelion took a slow, measured breath. His fingers slid over Geralt’s shoulder like a shadow. He was considerably warmer, yet his touch raised Geralt’s flesh in a shiver all the same. 

“Of course I do, and why shouldn’t I? You’ve no idea how insightful scholars and academics will find my research. Especially compared to that foul collection of untruths and–and utter nonsense that they allowed to be published before. People simply don’t understand Witchers. But I do,” he said, smoothing his fingers over Geralt’s hair, “and I will ensure that what I have written, all of my anecdotes and research and true, empirical evidence based on hypotheses and experimentation—what, why are you making that face?”

Dandelion’s face grew cooler, then grew as pensive and neutral as the sky beyond the palace walls. “You don’t believe me.”

“You haven’t allowed a single person to read it. Neither your… investigative findings nor your memoirs, both of which I can’t help but notice required no small amount of secrecy while you were writing them.”

“I’m still writing them,” the poet protested. “What, would you unveil a framed portrait that had not been finished?”

“Would providing an excerpt or two not rouse interest in such a work? And surely you can tell me,” Geralt said dryly, “what you’ve discovered about Witchers, especially the ones who happen to bear some resemblance to myself. I’m sure there’s nothing you can surprise me with, unless you’ve written something unflattering.”

“About you? Never.”

They both laughed, quietly and intimately. Geralt was certain they were laughing for different reasons.

“I understand that you were afraid to… investigate certain things,” the Witcher said carefully, once Dandelion had settled back into thoughtful silence. “I’m not judging you for your lack of knowledge or experience, nor would I judge you for concocting some elaborate excuse for wanting to… hypothesize and experiment, if that were the case.”

“I couldn’t possibly be afraid of you,” Dandelion said, his expression growing soft and sad, but it was another deflection. It may have been the truth, and Geralt suspected that it was, but it was a deflection all the same. “And even if I were afraid, or concerned for any reason, why should I make excuses? I think I’m very well acquainted with my own reservations, thank you.”

“You’re unwilling to tell me that you love me,” Geralt said quietly and calmly, “and you’re unwilling to tell me that you don’t. You won’t make a commitment, but you will make excuses. You’ll ask me questions about my schooling, but you won’t ask me why I’ve decided to spend my available nights with you. You’re a very skilled bluff, Dandelion, and that is a valuable talent in politics and academia, but not with people that you care about.”

Dandelion gave a humourless laugh. His hand slipped from Geralt’s hair, and somehow that seemed to colour his words with mild bitterness, like a fresh herbal tea. “Ah. You’re still angry that I didn’t tell you about being a viscount, is that what this is? Eh?”

“No,” Geralt said truthfully, recalling his conversation with Regis (and all of the frustration that had accompanied it). “You’re still Dandelion to me, whether you’re a viscount or a poet or a slice of fragrant cheese. You’ve always been Dandelion to me, and you’ll be Dandelion until you cease being Dandelion. I’m simply tired of talking in circles and sneaking like a mouse about the castle. If I can be truthful, I’d like to know whether this is all that I have to look forward to.”

Dandelion puffed up. Indignantly this time. “This isn’t enough for you?”

“This is,” Geralt said, “and would be, if it weren’t for the question of it being enough for two people. And I’m not talking about your daily wants and desires, which seem to me as unchanging as ice on a spring day. I’m talking about… beyond this. The season will turn, and the snow will melt in the mountain passes. And Ciri’s still out there. I can’t stay here forever.”

“So it’s this again.” 

“Yes,” Geralt said. “This again.”

The poet fidgeted, not meeting Geralt’s eyes for several seconds. “Well, if you wanted to see me squirm, you’ve found the proper way to do it. I’m afraid I simply can’t make a decision like this, Geralt. If I must decide between you and—”

“Between me and Anna Henrietta? I’m not asking you to decide on that. Not now, although I have every confidence in your eventual answer.”

“Then what are you asking?”

Geralt pushed himself upright. Dandelion, seeming to understand the importance of the gesture, dragged himself upward as well. “If I asked you to stay here… to remain in this very palace, safe in this duchy, for as long as it takes to bring Ciri home safely, would you do it? Would you stay, and allow Milva, Regis, Cahir, Angoulême and myself to ride alone?”

Dandelion swallowed. His eyes flickered across Geralt’s face like a nervous candle flame chasing shadows. “If you asked? Of course I would. And I would wait for you, Milva, Regis, Cahir, and Angoulême to return with Ciri, and would age three days for each that passed until you returned, as well.”

“And if I asked you to come,” Geralt said softly. “If I asked you for horses and tack and victuals, and to ride with them and with me toward certain death, would you come? Without knowing whether you would return, or whether we could find Ciri, or even Yennefer… would you join me?”

Dandelion gazed at Geralt for a long moment.

“If you had asked me in the spring,” he said at last, “any of this, I would have said no. Believe me, Geralt, I would have easily said no.”

Geralt had no trouble believing him.

“And now?”

The poet shook his head, looking at the window, at the walls, at the rich linen canopy draped overhead between the sturdy wooden posts of the bed. He looked at anything and everything, but not at Geralt.

“I had selfish reasons for doing what I did, Geralt. In that, you are not mistaken. For writing the book, for asking you those questions, for… getting close to you, and for remaining closer still. I lied once or twice,” he said with a soft laugh, and though Geralt did not so much as smile in return, he seemed to understand perfectly that Geralt knew this to be true. “But if you asked me if I regretted any of it… traveling with you, yes. Agreeing to aid you in your ridiculous, unachievable, death-defying journey, yes. I regretted the terror that it brought me every day of my life. But I don’t regret this, and I don’t regret a single moment that I spent learning about you. And, I suppose, learning about myself with you.” 

“Not even the things you were too ashamed to ask about. To ask for.”

“No.” Dandelion’s voice had taken on a decidedly resolute quality. “No, Geralt. I don’t regret any of it. In fact…” He hesitated then, wet his lips, and stared long and hard down at Geralt’s hand. “If I can be honest with you… I haven’t written this in my book, and will not, you understand. But it frightens me greatly to think that I’ve fallen in love with you, Geralt. And after all of this, all of the years we’ve spent together, the… ridiculous things we’ve been through. All of the times that you saved me, or I saved you… I do believe with the utmost sincerity that I am frightened worse by the possibility that I haven’t.”

Geralt felt a warmth within him so uncomfortable that he nearly mistook it for indigestion. Then mistook it for the chrysoprase-and-silver medallion, that unexpected gift which had lay placid and inert for so many nights, yet which had not left his chest since the evening Dandelion had given it to him.

In fact, it was the medallion. It shivered gently, warning Geralt of some unseen danger in almost precisely the same manner as his previous medallion. But he had his doubts about this medallion’s usefulness, even though Dandelion had assured him time and time again of Fringilla Vigo’s unwavering faith in the enchantments that she had placed upon it. And so he understood (or assumed, though it may well have meant the same thing) that the only danger present was not posed to either of them in this current time or place, but in the request that sat upon his tongue.

“Come with me,” whispered the Witcher. “We’ll follow the Sansretour. We’ll take the Malheur pass and travel south together. Toward certain death.”

Dandelion, who had in the last several minutes appeared to respond as genuinely and honestly as Geralt had ever known him to be, took Geralt’s face in his hands, leaned in, and kissed him on the forehead.

And Geralt, feeling the warmth of fondness and desperation flicker within his chest like a forest fire catching on dry kindling, could not help but hope that there was more honesty yet to come.

The next morning brought the same thing it always brought, and a bit extra: overcast skies the colour of stone, wind that painted cheeks pink and made one’s nose drip, and a hearty breakfast. Only on this particular morning, Geralt also woke to horses and tack and victuals. As promised.

Milva, Regis, Cahir, and Angoulême were also at the ready, having been visited late in the night by Geralt, who had informed each of them that departure was imminent. Some even seemed prepared to leave, though none as much as Geralt. Even the newest Roach snorted and stamped impatiently, as though eager to break into a gallop and leave the snow-dusted orchards and quaint cobbled streets of Toussaint far behind.

Dandelion was nowhere to be found.

XII

_No Witcher dies of old age._

_They die with splintered bones, in artful spatters of gore, with their bellies half-full of food they had planned to digest, or their swords still gripped in their cold hands. They die crushed, bruised, beaten, broken, brutalized. Their lungs fill with blood and they froth pink from a blade slipped between the ribs. They float in lakes of crimson and gaze sightlessly at the stars while a beast snarls above them. They are impaled upon pikes, flayed, burned, pecked apart and carried off in the bellies of carrion birds and hungry scavengers, a warning to all who see them._

_They die alone, and if they have time to reflect before their souls depart, they die understanding that they have failed. And that they are alone._

_I do not know what I would say to a Witcher before he died. I am afraid that when the time comes for me to speak my last words to a Witcher, they will not be sufficient enough. ~~No words can adequately describe~~_

_~~I cannot find the words to~~ _

_~~There is no way for me to tell him~~ _

_~~I am afraid to lose him~~ _

— Author unknown; found on a torn scrap of paper in Beauclair Palace, tucked beneath the bed inside the chambers belonging to the deceased Duke of Toussaint

“One last thing,” Geralt said, combing his fingers through his hair to determine whether the blood had been entirely washed out. “Before we call for the lieutenant, I wonder… is there any way for you to… could you relay a message using magic? Nothing complicated. I think only a phrase or even a few words would suffice.”

Geralt watched Yennefer, who having cleaned the blood and dust from herself now idly stirred the perfumed water that filled the marble bath, turn her head in his direction, and he saw with equal clarity the look upon her face which plainly suggested that she was dubious that there was anyone left for Geralt to contact, as the companions who had accompanied Geralt on this perilous mission now rested in pools of blood, and the emperor of Nilfgaard had already taken leave of Stygga Castle with Ciri, who Geralt had already said his farewells to.

“Are you in a hurry?”

“I would prefer to do it while the bath water’s still warm,” he said, then cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is… there are certain sentiments that I… things I haven’t yet said out loud to certain individuals, and I think that it would be unpleasant for me to die believing that there was more than I should have said, things that it was within my means to say, but that I chose not to say while I was able.

“I left Dandelion in Toussaint,” he explained after Yennefer’s calm, cool silence stretched on and on. “I knew that he wouldn’t travel with us, so I didn’t give him the opportunity to say goodbye. Or to say more than that, as he’s so prone to doing.”

Yennefer made an amused sound that clearly and undeniably stated a lack of amusement. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be so remorseful over finding a way to keep him quiet. Nonetheless, I’m sure you’re glad now that you left him behind.”

“I’m glad that he’s not here,” Geralt clarified, pulling his hair over one shoulder. “Yet I can’t claim to be glad that I left him that way. In a castle, of course, where he can be smitten and fawned over by the adoring public and… live out the rest of his days.”

Geralt, gazing down at the water, found that he was unable to think of anything but what Dandelion must have been doing at that moment. He wondered whether Dandelion recognized, either in a metaphysical capacity or through some unusual, impossible magics crossing time and space (destiny, usually destiny) that Geralt and Yennefer would shortly be dead and that Ciri would never return in triumph to Toussaint to greet the troubadour as they had once discussed.

He lifted his hand and, watching the water’s surface, brushed his fingertips against those of his reflection, testing with careful precision the surface tension of the water until he could almost imagine that someone was reaching up from below to touch his hand. _Perhaps,_ he thought with a small smile, _Dandelion might even be taking a bath, too. He might soak in a tub much like this one, lounging in steaming, fragrant water until his skin turns pink, and he might enjoy a pleasant nap after drying off and enjoying a light meal. Perhaps we might drift off together, at the same time, many miles apart, with one destined to wake in the morning while the other..._

The sorceress, still silent, seemed to consider that for a time. It was entirely possible that she’d read his mind, either before his explanation had been voiced or at present, while he was still so hesitant to speak; once upon a time, not so long ago, she had done just that and had still not been satisfied with the declaration of love that she’d found there. That time seemed as distant and transparent as a cirrus cloud, now, as did the first evening Dandelion had comforted him after departing Brokilon… and like a cloud shifting in the atmosphere, Geralt’s thoughts formed a shape. It occurred to the Witcher that Dandelion had perhaps understood that Geralt had been hurting not only physically, but emotionally as well, and sought to ease his suffering and loneliness in more ways than either had been able to reconcile in that moment.

And then the cloud grew formless, and the thought dissipated into wisps of wistfulness, and Geralt felt Yennefer sigh and slump against him.

“No,” she said after some time, when Geralt had just begun to think that she might make him wait until the water was cool. She rested her head against Geralt’s shoulder, and Geralt found it comforting when her fingers found his beneath the water’s surface. “I’m sorry, Geralt. I hope that your final words to him were not ones to regret.”

And though Geralt did not yet know that the last words he’d said to Dandelion would not be his final for months to come, he smiled once more and was satisfied.

“Then let’s not wait any longer. Let’s call them,” he said, referring to the Nilfgaardian lieutenant who would never come to bring the knife which had been promised to them by Emhyr. “Let’s get it over with.”

It was, in fact, already over. All that was left to do was to leave the castle, with Yennefer and Ciri by his side, to make good on his promise at last. And perhaps to say some things that he should have said long ago.

It did not bode well, in Geralt’s mind, to see such a rambunctious crowd gathered in the courtyard.

Yet as Geralt recognized the familiar blond hair and the raised voice rolling over the tops of the heads of the crowd like a particularly panicked ocean wave, he understood that he had not arrived too late; he had arrived at precisely the correct time. His stomach churned uncomfortably, and he frowned at the figure that stood upon the scaffolding, where a stump had been rolled out and covered with a fine cloth.

And luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Dandelion appeared to have noticed him at precisely the same moment.

“Oh! Well, think of the devil and he shall make himself known. Geralt, please, come, you’re just in time for...” Dandelion’s face brightened, and he turned to the headsman who stood nearby as though addressing an old friend. “Ah, well, I suppose you’re wondering what’s what with this public display, eh? But I rather think all of this speaks for itself. I’m to be executed, you see, and probably should have been some time ago if my jurors are to be believed, but obviously this changes things! Master executioner, my dear man, would you be so gracious and reasonable as to grant me a moment to speak with this, ah… surely you know Geralt of Rivia, Knight Errant…?”

“I know him. And you’ve spoken to him,” the executioner pointed out. “Just now, in fact.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve spoken to him, _at_ him, but not with him. There’s a great difference, surely a learned and understanding man such as yourself should recognize that. And anyway, I’m asking quite nicely, and.. And,” he said, drawing his vowels out for time, “there are children here, and what sort of example would you set if you did not allow me one final conversation with my very best friend in the entire world? Surely this isn’t against policy. It’s not against policy, see,” he added, turning his attention to Geralt after observing the headsman’s baffled shrug. The wooden scaffolding gave a great moaning complaint as Dandelion moved closer and leaned over the edge of the platform’s rickety railing, beckoning Geralt and Ciri to step closer as though he hoped to conspire with them one final time. 

“Don’t pretend to develop a sudden shyness now, come here! Oh! Ciri! How lovely to see you again, you’re looking… alive! And healthier than ever,” the poet announced, smoothly sliding his gaze over the scar that disfigured Ciri’s face with the same ease with which he often regarded Geralt and his many acquired wounds. Then, to Geralt’s surprise, he looked at someone else. “Excellent. Er, good sir, yes, you, standing just beside that lovely Roach, would you mind terribly if I borrowed that hat of yours?”

“He means the horse,” Ciri said wisely as the man in the hat began to dance on the cobblestone in an attempt to shake off the invisible insects. A few of the urchins nearby, who had also begun to search for roaches on the ground, quickly moved back into place, spreading out handkerchiefs to catch the blood of the condemned man to sell for a profit.

Dandelion, noticing this, grimaced, then gestured at the crowd. “No, dear, I do mean the hat. Quickly, I don’t have all day. Thank you, good sir, I’ll see that you’re compensated appropriately for it once this one is covered in blood and other fluids which may leak from my headless corpse. My last hat, would you believe it. Geralt, would you mind…?”

Still leaning over the perilously unsteady handrail, Dandelion waited for Geralt to step closer, and once the Witcher was within reach the poet gripped the hat and smacked Geralt upside the head with it. It was an awkward gesture, slow, and ineffective at doing anything other than causing the wood to crack beneath his weight, which alarmed some of the more immediate townsfolk who had gathered to watch an execution and were muttering in confusion and disappointment about the strange and theatrical reunion that was now happening.

Despite the precariousness of it all, Dandelion maintained his balance and seemed to have gained some pleasure from reuniting nonetheless.

“You dung-caked horse’s arse. You untimely ignoramus. You’ve waited until my very last day upon this earth to come trotting back, looking every bit the dashing hero on your lovely horse, and what’s more, you’ve brought Ciri, who deserves a longer explanation than I am able to give… am I? Huh? No, you see, I have very little time left among the living and now you’re making me look like an utter fool, Geralt. You shit bastard.”

Geralt patiently dodged another swing from the hat. He caught Dandelion by the wrist and steadied him before he could fall off of the stocks. A pulse thundered beneath his thumb, and Geralt was not entirely certain whether it was Dandelion’s alone. “Dandelion. Surely if these are to be your last words, you would wish to make them kinder. Or shorter, if what you have to say must be said.”

“Oh, all right, I’ll get to it. I’m angry, and here is why: you have waited until my final earthly day to parade before me like a peacock with all of your successes and achievements, and only now will I have the chance to tell you—my final chance, you hear—that I understand perfectly why you were so ruffled before you left Toussaint in the winter, shouting all of your nonsense and asking me for provisions and things which I was quite glad to give you, by the way. You acted as though I had done you some great disservice, and don’t shake your head as if you didn’t! You at the least pretended to be angry about—about what we spoke of last time I saw you, you remember? Harrumphing and spouting hurtful things as you always do, and by all rights, it should be me who’s angry—”

“I wasn’t angry,” Geralt said. “In fact, if you’ll remember, I wasn’t shouting at all. I will admit to speaking some nonsense, but I thought our last conversation was a quiet and polite one.”

Dandelion blinked down at him, momentarily taken aback. Or perhaps he realized that Geralt was right. Even more likely, he was simply stalling for time, though Geralt was not certain what good it would do to delay the inevitable.

Nonetheless, he held Dandelion’s wrist for as long as he was able.

“Well, screamed or spoken, it was hurtful to me all the same. Not our conversation, mind, but that you so readily trotted off without me.”

“On that,” Geralt said solemnly, gentling his grip, “I can agree.”

“I’m glad you’ve found something to agree upon, but… why were you spouting hurtful nonsense?” Ciri asked, impatient.

“I wasn’t.” Geralt eyed the axe shifting in the hand of the headsman, whose face upon hearing Dandelion’s plight had been drawn into an expression that brought to mind cramping and unpleasant bowel movements. A member of the crowd next to them yawned and turned away, evidently growing bored of the halted execution, and some even growing so bold as to mutter as much. “And I wasn’t pretending to be angry about anything. You know why I left the way that I did. And when I did.”

“Perhaps this is a conversation we could save for another time...?” Ciri suggested. Kelpie, her mare, snorted and tossed her mane while Dandelion turned and raised his eyebrows at the headsman, who shrugged, then shook his head.

“I’m sorry, my dear Ciri, it shall be now in this moment or it shall never be. Geralt, I want you to know that I understand completely and forgive you for deserting me, being your oldest and dearest friend, but I will not allow myself to be executed before you admit openly that you are a terrible hypocrite.”

“I actually don’t know if you can make that decision,” Geralt said.

“Well, that much is obvious, or else we wouldn’t be here and these fine people would not be forced to watch us flap our dirty laundry about. Nonetheless, you asked for a decision, and I’ve made it, but seeing as you weren’t here for me to tell you so, now’s your chance. Ask me the question you so desperately wished to ask me before.” 

The poet tapped his nails on the wood, the very picture of impatient royal arseholery.

Geralt narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t have all day, Geralt, and you’re boring the crowd.“

“It’s true,” supplied a young, pockmarked man in an apron. “I only wished to see the pithy fucker hanged, drawn, and quartered.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll need to attend another public execution, as you won’t see that here,” Dandelion said rudely.

“No, he won’t,” Ciri agreed, albeit for entirely different reasons, all of which Geralt could glean from the set of her face and voice alone and none of which he approved of. “Geralt, what question is he talking about?”

“You are a bastard of a man, Geralt of Rivia, Knight Innominate. You are the only man who claims to never wish to choose, no matter what the choice is, and yet you bristle like a mad dog when someone else refuses to choose.”

“Well, you say you did choose.”

“I did. And I have done some thinking in the time since your departure, and have decided this: I am deeply in love with my dear Anna Henrietta,” Dandelion announced.

There was a sensation in Geralt’s stomach that felt not unlike falling from a great height. Or slipping in mud. He did not feel nauseous, afraid. He was simply falling. 

“Surprise of surprises,” Geralt said softly. He let Dandelion’s hand slip from his grasp, and the gesture did not escape Dandelion himself.

“Oh, please,” said the troubadour, then drew a sharp breath. “The fact is… also, impossibly… and not in a way that I have been able to reconcile… despite not demonstrating it, or admitting it to myself in a meaningful manner… I have a deep love for you. And you know this. Please tell me you know this.”

“I think you have, at least in some manner, said words in an order that reminds me of a similar sentiment,” Geralt said, shifting in his saddle.

Dandelion shook his head. “Geralt, I don’t want… I know that we haven’t had a chance to truly discuss what we spoke of that night—”

“There was nothing to say.”

“On the contrary, there was and there is. Even now, I have so much that I haven’t said to you. So much that I want to say. I love Lady Henrietta, and I love you. I do. I was mistaken not to tell you that before. I love you the same as I love her, with the same fierce ache, the same adoration, the same… _je ne sais quois_. Geralt, I thought that I could love only one of you. I thought that loving one meant remaining apart from the other. I thought that it would be selfish to share myself with each of you—”

“I’m glad you realized something to be selfish.”

“Well, I—yes,” said the poet, looking sheepish. “Yes, I understand. That was my mistake, among many others.”

“The mistake was letting you yap on and on,” announced the exasperated executioner, shifting his axe in his hands. “This isn’t a confession, it’s a farce, and I’m not being paid hourly. Finish up so we can get on with it.”

Geralt only had time to turn back to Dandelion before the getting on with it actually occurred; specifically, the breathless bearer of news arrived, huffing and puffing and so colourful in the face from the exertion of arriving in the nick of time with what could be defined quite literally as life-saving information that he may have otherwise been mistaken for a strawberry. The information was, as it is now so often told at dinner parties to raucous laughter and knowing snickers and occasionally some bit of bigotedness, that Viscount Julian Alfred Pankratz had been granted a ducal pardon—owing to the general good mood that had been sweeping through much of the Continent in the days following the signing of the Peace of Cintra. The details of the ducal order were unimportant, save for the fact that he was being pardoned from execution only on the condition that he was to leave immediately and relinquish all land, castles, and so on and so forth. 

Geralt and Ciri understood with a silent glance that this meant he was to leave with simply the clothing on his back and should become rather comfortable with also relinquishing all of his worldly belongings—which amounted to a handful of hastily-gathered scrolls and papers, his lute, and Pegasus, that horse that looked just sufficient enough to carry out the terms of this pardon and who would likely be unwilling to carry Dandelion out of the duchy before the duchess changed her mind.

But he did get those things back, at least. Just before the border of Toussaint. _He’ll be grateful that I thought first to stop at the bank,_ Geralt thought, and smiled at the thought of having ridden off with the duchess’s consort and coin both.

“Well,” said the banished viscount in a dignified manner, straightening his clothing and slinging his lute across his back with great care as the ducal messenger made motions to depart, “give my love to the Lady, of course, and my sincerest and most heartfelt condolences.”

“Er,” said the messenger as Dandelion tucked away his papers inside his shirt, “why, no-one’s died, have they?”

Dandelion turned and straightened up, assuming a lord’s posture, and then with a mischievous twinkle in his eye said: “Thankfully not, but my dear Anna is suffering a great loss all the same. The great loss, of course, being my company. As a matter of fact”—the man seemed to have stopped paying attention, Geralt noticed, and was merely nodding along to give the impression of having listened—”don’t give her my love. Tell her only that the love of my life has saved me on this day, only salvation has not arrived in the form of a portly man bearing good news, but upon a stallion of pure ebony—”

“Mare,” Ciri said.

“A mare of pure ebony,” Dandelion finished, “and bearing many grievous wounds, and carrying swords still slick with blood—”

He carried on in this manner for several more seconds, blustering away with prose and hyperbole that was quite obviously meant to be a goodbye speech directed at the whole of Toussaint. Ciri and Geralt maintained steady eye contact throughout, and managed even without a mage’s telepathy to hold a conversation which amounted to great confusion and the assurance that all would be explained in time.

“All right,” said the ducal messenger as Dandelion finally turned away and mounted Pegasus, “anything else I should add?”

The viscount thought for several seconds. He looked at Geralt, then at Ciri.

“No, nothing else. In fact, you may omit everything I’ve just said. Simply tell her this—”

“Everything?”

“No, tell her this.”

“Then what do I omit?”

“Everything. All of it. Everything about the Witcher, the mare, all the rest.”

“Should I send your love? Or thanks?”

“No,” said Dandelion, brows knitting together in a look of great and royal contemplation. “You should send nothing. Tell her that I said nothing, and that I walked away with my companions with even more love in my heart than when I arrived.”

“So… do I tell her nothing, or do I tell her that you walked away and said nothing more?”

“I get the feeling that I’ve missed something,” whispered Ciri, who like the poor messenger appeared not to have absorbed a bit of Dandelion’s monologuing. “Which of us is supposed to be the love of his life, again?”

Geralt, who also was no longer paying attention to the specifics of Dandelion’s attempts to delay their departure, simply shook his head… though it was not to suggest that he did not know who the love of Dandelion’s life was. He knew it like blood knows the way from the heart to the brain. Like Witchers know to feint and pirouette and parry and slash and strike.

He’d always known. He’d not needed magical messages to tell him that. Dandelion had said as much the moment he’d seen them from the scaffold, and when he’d gifted Geralt his replacement medallion, and even back in the summer when he’d sat near Geralt’s side and brushed his fingers along the Witcher’s healed femur. He’d said so in a manner that was rather unlike Dandelion, which is to say he’d not yet said it aloud to anyone at all.

And yet he’d made it known all the same.

“Anyway, I can't say I’m disappointed about putting all of that behind me.”

“The feasts and silk and furs and soft beds in Beauclair, you mean? Or your own execution?”

“Both, thank you very much. Honestly, I think I was starting to go a bit fuzzy in there, cooped up in that palace for so long. It feels absolutely wonderful to breathe fresh air and stretch my legs… ah, who am I kidding. I’ve missed traveling, and I’ve even missed this strange beast Pegasus. Though, speaking of things left behind…” Dandelion glanced at Geralt and Ciri, and the question that he had been so very good about not asking for the duration of their travels far from Toussiant seemed to chill the pleasant spring air between them. Geralt forced himself to focus on the road, the budding trees that had already grown lively in the warm southern climate, the clouds that had so far only kept to the horizon and left the midday sun to dry out the ground after last night’s rain. Anything was better than thinking about what he’d had to leave behind. And he suspected that someone would see to it that little would remain of the macabre scene that they had left behind.

“Yennefer’s safe too,” Geralt said simply, and Dandelion nodded emphatically.

“Well, I’d hoped as much when I noticed that you’d brought one companion, though I was very glad to see young Ciri, of course. The others are waiting for us elsewhere, I presume? Somewhere with less… concern about my crimes and misdeeds and offenses?”

Ciri, who for the last several minutes had been listening to Dandelion complain about departing without the various comforts or items he had hoped to take with him when he inevitably set forth into the world again, grew silent. Silent in a way that settled like a heavy blanket over Geralt, too. Even the horses were quiet out of respect.

“No-one’s waiting,” Geralt said. “We’re all that’s left.”

He fell silent once more. And for the first time in quite a long time—aside from a very soft and enlightened ‘oh’, so quiet that no-one aside from the horses and the three riders astride them would ever hear it—so did Dandelion.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

Geralt, who had sat wordlessly next to Dandelion for the better part of an hour while the fire sputtered and coughed sparks into the night and slowly dwindled to embers and then to ash, did not wish to talk about it. Nor did he know precisely what it was that Dandelion wished to talk about.

“What would you like to talk about?”

Dandelion shifted uneasily. Geralt felt him lean a bit closer, and was surprised by how much he ached from the tender simplicity of the gesture. “I don’t know. I think it would be nice to discuss everything, though I suspect there are some wounds still too fresh and that discussing them would rather be like rubbing salt in them than a salve. Admittedly, I’d quite like to know whether you’re glad I didn’t travel with you when you left Toussaint. Unless you wished I had, and regretted terribly the decision to leave without bidding me goodbye, in which case _I’m_ glad I didn’t go, your feelings be damned.”

Geralt was quiet for a moment. He was unable to resist the urge to lean into Dandelion’s side as well, and he found it comforting to do so—in the same way that Yennefer’s back had felt against his in the bath that Emhyr var Emreis had offered them, or in the same way that Ciri’s prone, still outline near the fire offered him. It was not the same comfort that a warm bed and a hot meal would have provided, the sort of comfort that one could go without for weeks or months if need be; it was instead the comfort of life, of hot breath steaming in still winter air, or a pulse beating beneath the fingers in a body thought to be lifeless. The sort of comfort that one needed to survive. He was certain now that that was what Dandelion meant to him. Now he simply needed to say it. Dandelion, despite having a knack for saying both the right and dreadfully wrong things in the precise moment in which they were needed, could not read minds.

“I’m glad you didn’t go, either,” Geralt admitted. “And more glad that I happened across you when I did.”

“Ah, well, I was bound to be pardoned whether you were there or not,” Dandelion said, but to Geralt’s surprise he did not put on airs, nor did he follow up with a speech about his confidence in Anna Henrietta’s love for him and his certainty in the long life that he had ahead of him. “But I think that I am very fortunate that you and Ciri were there, as I’m not sure I would have been able to leave on my own without some persuasion. And I can’t say what would have happened if I’d left on my own, so...”

The poet sighed and seemed to deflate somewhat, and rested his cheek on Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt felt that distant, familiar spark of warmth and fondness kindled deep within him, and felt it flicker into something greater as Dandelion, with a soft exhale of amusement, pressed a kiss to the fabric of his shirt.

“Well, you would have been executed in full, in addition to having all of your lands and estates confiscated.”

“Ugh. And my coat of arms defaced, can you believe it?”

“I can think of no worse punishment for treason,” Geralt said dryly. “Or for lèse-majesté. Is that the truth? Or was there more to the story?”

“Ah, well. It was for romanticism, you see. Nothing is more romantic to the good people of Toussaint than the spectacle of a bloody beheading... or hanging, or dragging by horse and quartering, or general misery-causing and subsequent life-ending. I do suspect, being as beloved a figure as I am, the violent tragedy of my death would have caused a great deal of grief. And would have made one hell of a spectacle.”

Geralt could not dispute that.

“I imagine you’re not wrong. I heard what the executioner said, but I can’t help but wonder... what was your crime specifically? Was that also romance?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Dandelion brushed his fingers along the inner surface of Geralt’s wrist with slow movements that brought to mind the strumming of lute strings. Not the cautious strumming characteristic of a new musician learning proper placement and technique, but the pressure of practiced fingers tracing a worn, well-loved instrument. Dandelion had most certainly felt the slowness of Geralt’s heartbeat before. His radial pulse must have had a half-dozen lines written about it, Geralt suspected… and then thought of something, yet decided to wait until Dandelion was finished speaking. “Though I detect some sarcasm from you, it’s the genuine truth. I love her, of course, but it seems she was not particularly keen on my, ah… well, to be frank, my being in love with someone else simultaneously.”

Geralt turned his hand. Dandelion, who seemed able to read his gesture, slid his fingers along the calloused insides of Geralt’s own, then rested their palms together.

“I love you too,” Geralt said, and felt immediately better for having done so. Weightless, like a dandelion seed dancing on the breeze. Yet it still felt if he were slipping in mud, falling backward, spinning his arms for balance. Except it had been too long since he had felt so uncertain of his footing. He had felt fear, most certainly, and quite an amount of utter desolation as of late. But he had not felt this way in so very long. Not since Yennefer. And not since Brokilon.

The poet laughed quietly. He radiated a satisfaction so immense that it seemed as if the very air around them shimmered with it. “You know, as a matter of fact, I believe that I noted a similar sentiment in my writings, though I admit that it may have been an assumption on my part, since I can’t completely remember whether you actually said as much to me. That’s likely how she made that discovery, of course. I consider myself quite a talented and concise writer, as you know. I pride myself on my attention to detail.”

“Is that why you left them behind? Your precious tubes full of memoirs and research and flowery language about Witcher physiology? I’m surprised that you didn’t fight to have them brought to you with the rest of your things. I thought they were important to you. Important to the scholastic community, at least.”

“Ha! Well, the scholastic community can bugger themselves. They won’t publish such eloquent truth-telling anyway, not if it makes Witchers into philanthropists and charitable do-gooders instead of monsters and sexual sadists. Though I did go into a great bit of detail in certain areas, which will unfortunately be lost to dust or moths or a small fire… or have some other such tragic fate befall it…”

“You could always rewrite it.”

“Hm,” said Dandelion. “Well, that’s a possibility that I hadn’t considered. Yes, I believe my memoirs will greatly benefit from being rewritten and reworded, elaborated upon, redacted, _et cetera_. With a more mature narration, a new wisdom, a… a perspective divorced from the terror and narrow-mindedness of the moment in which the tales were written. Yes, I think I’ll simply write them again.”

“And your research findings?” Geralt asked. He thought at first that Dandelion, who shifted then, meant to pull his hand away, and found himself pleasantly surprised when the poet’s fingers slid between his own, a soft palm pressing against Geralt’s calloused skin. “It may need to be subjected to scrupulous censorship, of course, but I’m certain you could make it work. Are you planning to make it more palatable for academic audiences?”

Dandelion was quiet and thoughtful. Geralt pressed his nose into the poet’s hair. He still smelled faintly of soap and perfume, comforts from the palace that had already begun to fade with their time on the road, as the path that Ciri had set for them still included certain small villages and towns that had, it seemed, each lost its inn to fire or some other disaster. Soon, Geralt knew, Dandelion would settle into this life again with ease. He would pick up old grooming habits, would grow accustomed to the grime of travel, would savour the hot baths and meals when they were made available. He was a viscount, yes, and accustomed to the life and lodgings of a viscount… but he was Dandelion, too. And Dandelion and Geralt had traveled comfortably together for quite a long time now. And Geralt suspected they would for quite some time more.

“You know,” Dandelion began slowly, “there’s really not much palatable about Witchers, is there? Not for general audiences, anyway. It’s not nearly as exciting to read about the glacial pace of a Witcher’s heartbeat and… I don’t know, conscious control of one’s pupils as it is to imagine that they hiss and chatter like cats when they see a bird in the sky, or that they take great sexual pleasure in murder and sadism. Of course, I know the truth, and I could easily share it, but…”

“Maybe there are other things you could conduct your research on,” Geralt suggested. “So long as you’re moderately more forthcoming about the experiments you’re conducting, of course. And the reasons behind them. Witchers are the unfortunate product of experiments, remember.”

Dandelion hummed and watched as Ciri, who had been demonstrating her best impression of a fallen log in the cool evening, shifted in her sleep. The poet smiled faintly, and squeezed Geralt’s hand. When he spoke again, it was in a softer voice, as though he were embarrassed or attempting to be discreet or even both. “Well, I’m no scientist or physioanatomist. I merely consider myself a… an interested bystander, shall we say. A consumer of such knowledge, and I prefer to observe anyhow. But I’m genuinely sorry for the way that I treated you. Especially when you were… when I had numerous occasions in which to confess to you my…”

“It would have saved me some trouble.”

“Or caused more,” Dandelion said. “To think, if I’d been so foolish as to admit the truth to myself and follow you into Vilgefortz’s lair… we likely wouldn’t be having this conversation. It was destiny, you might say.” He paused, wetting his lips. “Though perhaps I could have been more honest with myself, as well, even if I wasn’t lying in some respects about being as shy as a virgin. But I will tell you that I was nothing but honest in my intentions. I set out to learn more about you, and to prove that those terrible things that have been said about Witchers for years were not true. And I did.”

“Yes, but your sample size is too small to hold up to scrutiny. Your results are skewed, unbalanced, hardly even objective. You haven’t interviewed any other Witchers, and you’ve known much of this about me for years. You only managed to prove that some of those things are not true of me in particular, never mind other Witchers from Kaer Morhen, to say nothing of other schools of Witchers. And even then, you have to assume that I’ve been honest myself.”

“Hm. You make a good point. Maybe I’ll need to set off in the morning in search of my next subject, and put some other poor Witcher through his paces, just as I have you.” Dandelion lifted his head and Geralt met his gaze. There was a mischief in his eyes that sparkled even without the light of the fire, and no small amount of fondness. The same mischief that had been present at Regis’s shack, and on the road to the Slopes, and numerous times thereafter. Geralt understood precisely what sort of invitation it was, and he was satisfied when Dandelion sighed and sank into the first sweet kiss that they had shared in months, melting against Geralt like butter in warm potato. And Geralt was just as hungry for it; he gripped Dandelion tighter and held him close, and slid his fingers through the poet’s hair as Dandelion silenced him in the most effective and practical way that he knew how.

Then, with one hand beneath Geralt’s shirt and the other braced against his chest, Dandelion stopped.

“Wait just one second,” the troubadour breathed. His fingers brushed through Geralt’s chest hair, skimmed in a manner that couldn’t have been accidental across one nipple, and stopped just over his sternum, where the polished chrysoprase-and-silver medallion shuddered briefly on its chain. He smiled hesitantly, feeling its unfamiliar motion, and glanced up to study Geralt’s face. “Your medallion. It’s meant to warn you of danger, isn’t it? Does that mean it worked against Vilgefortz?”

“It did.” Geralt lifted his hand and brushed Dandelion’s hair back from his face; it was now shorter than when Geralt had last seen him, and revealed the silver scar on his temple that had long since healed under Regis’s care. And perhaps a few new silver hairs, if Geralt’s eyes did not deceive him. “It worked perfectly. But don’t worry, there are no monsters here tonight.”

Dandelion raised an eyebrow. Geralt brushed his fingers over that, too. He had the distinct feeling that there was much more of Dandelion that he would like to get his hands on… in time, and in spaces that would grant far more privacy than the cover of darkness and a blanket or two would allow them.

“It seems to work better at some times than others,” the Witcher explained quietly. “In truth, I initially thought it would contribute to my demise; a monster could sneak out of the woods and tickle your feet faster than your lovely gift would respond to it, but… it saved my life, and I know now that it can be trusted. Just as I know that you can be.”

Dandelion sat back on his knees and chuckled quietly, wiping saliva from his lips with his thumb. “Yeah, well… I must admit that I’m curious about the precise sort of danger it’s warning us about, but… I suppose I can think of little more threatening to a Witcher’s life than falling ass-over-teakettle for someone so charming and intelligent as myself, eh? If that lovely little trinket isn’t twitching because it knows that Yennefer is going to murder us both, then it frightens me to think what—”

The coquettish grin that the poet wore only lasted for a second, for it only took a second for Geralt to reach for Dandelion and kiss him again, muffling his delighted vocalizations and urging him into quiet and then into near-silence, so as not to wake Ciri or disturb the chorus of springtime insects that sang around them. In near-silence, so that he could confirm with his touch and his kiss the truth that he had already confessed.

“Oh,” murmured Dandelion when at last Geralt’s silent confirmation had slowed to gentle mouthing along his jawline and his hands were in a conspicuous place once more. His voice was barely above a whisper, and his breath was still unsteady. “Oh, you. Mister Romantic. And I’d been so certain that I had little left to discover about you…”

“A little,” Geralt agreed once Dandelion had stopped kissing him to shove back the blanket under which they had hidden and catch his breath. “But not nothing.”

Dandelion rolled onto his back stared up at the sky, breathless and grinning; the haze of smoke from the fires during war-time had dissipated, and the leaves had not yet grown enough to obscure the scattered stars that populated the great, dark dome of the night sky.

“How truly fortunate I am, dear Witcher,” he murmured, then glanced at Geralt with a smaller, more sincere smile; though it was not likely that the poet could see much more than shadow, Dandelion looked as though he had discovered a rare and precious thing. 

“How fortunate we both are,” Geralt agreed. “How fortunate indeed.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Anatomy of a Wticher](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26690308) by [mashimero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mashimero/pseuds/mashimero)




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